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POPULATION.
Census 74,602
Registrar General's estimate, mid-year :
All ages 74,140
Children 0-2 inclusive 5,286
Children 5-14 „ 9,212
The 1951 census gives the population of Merton and
Morden as 74,602. It is pointed out in the report that these
figures are provisional and are subject to confirmation later in
the substantive census reports. The Registrar General's midyear
estimate for 1951 is 74,140, that is all ages including
members of the armed Forces. The natural increase, i.e. the
excess of births over deaths for the year is 160, the lowest since
1927. The populations, with births and deaths and the
natural increase for the year will be found in Table III on
page 18.
The census reveals that Merton and Morden, like other
areas in the outer ring of London, have grown as the
Administrative County of London has diminished in population
by a continuous decentralising process. This process during
the war, that is since 1939, has been greatly accelerated so that
the position today is that the population within the County of
London is 3,348,336 or 16% less than in 1939 and, as the
Registrar General points out, more than a million less than it
was at the 1931 census, a loss in the 20 years equivalent in
magnitude to the entire population of Birmingham, our largest
provincial town.
The effect of this centrifugal dispersal of the population of
London on our own population is shown by the fact that we are
included in the 27 areas with a gain of population in excess of
50% since the 1931 census; our gain is in fact 81% and in the
previous intercensal period was 135.2%. Reproduced on page
14 is an extract from Table IV of the preliminary census report
13
showing the population growths in the Surrey part of the outer
ring, which will probably be of considerable local interest.