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DEATHS
The deaths allocated to the district, as adjusted by inward and outward
transferable deaths, was 566—293 males and 273 females. This gives a
crude death rate of 9.3 per thousand population as against 8.3 in the year
before. The "comparable" death rate produced by the application of the
Registrar-General's comparability factor of 1.28 to allow for differences in
the age and sex constitution of the local population as compared with the
country as a whole was 11.8. The rate for England and Wales was 11.7.
The distribution of the deaths by wards was as follows:—

Mortality due to cancer at 2.23 per thousand, was the highest yet
recorded in the district. It compares with 1.70 in the year before and is
slightly higher than the rate for the country as a whole. This increase in
part reflects the rising average age of the local population, since malignant
disease is primarily an affliction of middle and old age. The increase
however could be accounted for by the rise in cancer of the lungs. No
fewer than 40 deaths from disease in this situation were assigned by the
Registrar-General to this district. This is 10 more than the previous
highest in each of the years 1953 and 1954. Almost half the total cancer
deaths in men were due to disease of the lungs.