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" Kensington," prior to 1st January, 1885, was the title
of a Registration District, No. 1 on the Registrar-General's
list, comprising the parishes of Kensington and Paddington.
Since that date the purish of Kensington has been constituted
a separate Registration District, and is numbered 1b. It
contains 2,190 acres according to the Registrar-General; but in
your Vestry's Annual Report the area is given as 2,245 acres.
In 1871 the enumerated houses were 15,735, in 1881, 20,103;
increase, 4,368. 1n 1871 the population was 120,299 ; in
1881, 163,151 ; increase, 42,852. At the middle of 1887 the
inhabited houses were some 21,566, and the estimated
population 175,000.
Registration Sub-Districts. —For registration purposes
the parish is unequally divided into two sub-districts, " Kensington
Town," hereinafter for brevity designated " Town," and
" Brompton." The Town sub-district comprises an area of 1,497
acres, the area of Brompton being 693 acres. The population
of the Town sub-district at the middle of 1887 was about
128,500, and that of Brompton 46,500. The Town sub-district
still includes some open spaces, as Holland Park and NottingBarn
Farm. The Brompton sub-district, in which the builder
has been busy of late years, many of the new houses being of a
palatial character, is now nearly covered. The West London
or Brompton Cemetery, Government property, is in this subdistrict
; the Kensal Green Cemetery, in private ownership, in
the Town sub-district. These cemeteries, it is to regretted, are
still in active use : the former certainly ought to be closed.
The sub-districts present marked differences, which must
be borne in mind in any comparison of their vital statistics.
In Brompton the rich and well-to-do form a large proportion
of the population, whilst in the Town sub-district there is a
considerable and probably an increasing percentage of persons
of the poorer classes. The poor in Kensington, however, are
better off in one respect than the poor in some other parts of
the Metropolis, in that, for the most part, they live in houses
fairly well-built and obviously intended for occupation by the