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ANNUAL REPORT, 1925.
To the Members of the Sutton Urban District
Council.
By the direction of the Ministry of Health the
report for the year 1925 has to be a Survey Report,
which should deal with the measure of progress made
during the previous five years in the improvement of
the public health, and the extent and character of the
changes made during that period in such public health
services as housing, water-supply, sewerage, scavenging
or refuse disposal, food inspection, maternity and
child welfare, etc., etc.,
These matters are dealt with in the body of this
report.
For the purpose of estimating the birth and death
rates the Registrar-Ceneral has stated the population
of the District to be 21,320.
The population at the last Census—1921—was
21,063. This gave an average of 4 66 persons per
dwelling; a smaller number than at any previous
Census. It is not unlikely that on the occasion of
the last Census householders, who had sublet for gain
and thereby caused overcrowding, failed to include all
the occupants on the prescribed form. It is not
unusual when an inspection is being made by the
Public Health Department to meet with considerable
reticence on the part of a tenant in stating the number
of his family and lodgers. In making these inspections
several cottages of 4 or 5 rooms have been found
to have an average of seven persons above the age of
twelve years and four below that age.
Keeping, however, to the Census average of 4.66
persons per dwelling, and allowing that average to be
applied to the 407 houses erected since the Census
[the overcrowding in many of the older cottages will