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Gentlemen,
In accordance with the proposal I formerly submitted to you
of making my Quarterly Report for the last three months of the year an Annual
Report, I have now the honor of laying before you an account of the mortality of the
district, together with the progress of sanitary improvement, for the year ending 2nd
January, 1858, a period embracing 53 weeks.
I have chosen the present time for presenting you with an annual report,
because it is coincident with that adopted by the Registrar General for publishing
his Annual Abstract of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, which is the text book for the
comparison of the mortality of each district, and my doing so, will afford facilities of
any person feeling an interest in the subject, to observe annually the results of sanitary
improvement, as shown in the rate of mortality in his own locality, and compare
it with that in others.
From the published returns of the Registrar General, the mortality in the Whitechapel
district for the 10 years, 1841-to-50, is represented as being 29 in every
1000 living, or 1 in 34 of the whole population. In my first Annual Report for
1856, I estimated the mortality for the preceding year (1855) at 27 in every 1000,
or 1 in 36 of the entire population, and during the last year, embracing 53 weeks,
the death-rate is calculated to be 24'4 in 1000, or 1 in 41 of all living. The deathrate
for this district has always been represented as higher than it really is, inasmuch
as, the deaths of the non-residents have always been included in the returns. It
nevertheless is considerably in excess of what it ought to be, and what I sincerely
trust it will be in the course of a few years ; for, if we compare the mortality of this
district with that of sixty-four* others in England, we shall find, that in the Whitechapel
district, the deaths exceed those of the more healthy ones, by 8 or 9 in every
1000, or, in other words, that in your district, during the year 1856, (supposing the
population to be as I have estimated it, viz : 84,000,) between 700 and 800 persons
died unnecessarily and prematurely, the result being the same as if they had
died violent deaths, occasioned either by accident or design. The death-rate for all
* In sixty-four districts in England, the mortality was 15 and 17 in a 1000 living, and if the
laws of health were better understood and practised, it is more than probable that even this
now considered a low rate of mortality, would be still further reduced.