View report page

SECTION A.
STATISTICS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AREA.
Area (in acres) 3,238
Number of inhabited houses according to
Rate Books 22,005
Rateable value at 31st December, 1949 £669,522
Sum represented by Id. rate £2,732
The Urban District of Merton and Morden dates from the
amalgamation of Merton with Morden in 1913. The area is
both residential and industrial. Its proximity to London and the
railway facilities predestined it to be a large dormitory area,
and its industrial development, due at first to the River Wandle
which, from very early times attracted manufactories depending
on such a natural advantage and at a later date to careful and
deliberate planning, provided convenient sites for the industrial
expansion which was taking place in London.
It is appropriate here to record that the River Wandle, to
which Merton owes its existence, is under threat of extinction.
Ironically enough the "clear rivulet so full of trouts," of
Camden's Britannia, is now to a large extent dependent on the
sewage effluent from the Croydon Sewage Works for maintaining
both its flow and its quality, and the present project to divert
this water for cooling purposes for the new Croydon Electric
Power Station if carried out must inevitably add to the present
difficulty in keeping it free from nuisance. The Merton Board
Mills, anxious to preserve the quantity for their industrial use,
have unsuccessfully sought to prevent the withdrawal of this
water but the riparian authorities and the sanitary authorities
appear to have no power to restrain this action.
Industry. There were 195 factories registered under the
Factory Act at the end of the year, as follows: —
Factories with mechanical power:—
Employing more than 40 persons 52
Employing less than 40 persons 122
Factories without mechanical power 21
195
Of fifty-two factories employing more than 40 persons, one
factory employs more than 2,000, three others employ 500 or
more, and a further twenty-seven factories employ more than
100 persons.
6