View report page

2
calculated upon tho decennial census enumerations since the commencement
of civil registration, shews such slight variations from
decade to decade in Bethnal Green that this seems to mo tho safest
plan. Between the years 1861 and 1871, tho population of
Bethnal Green increased at tho rate of 14.3 percent; between
1871 and 1881 tho increase was at the rate of 5.7 per cent; and
between 1881 and 1891 it was only 1.7 per cent. This falling off
in the rate of tho growth of our population is partly due to tho
fact that tho whole of tho Parish has become gradually covered
with buildings, and also partly to the fact that of late years many
of tho dwelling houses have been turned into business premises,
and as this substitution of factories for dwellings will probably
continue, we must anticipate a still lower rate of increase during
the next ten years.
I have this year delayed my Report so as to be able to take
advantage of tho census which was made throughout the Kingdom
on the 6th day of April, 1891, and the statistics in this Report
are calculated on the population enumerated in Bethnal Green ; it
will be noted that the number of inhabitants found to bo living on
that day was 1886 below my estimate for the year 1889, but as
my estimate gave a birth rate almost identical with ono for 1890
calculated on the census enumeration, I do not think it was very far
wrong, and the decrease may be accounted for by the large numbers
of houses demolished by the Great Eastern Railway Company in
widening their line, and also by the closure of many unhoalthy
and dilapidated dwellings under the Housing of the Working
Classes Act. My opinion is also supported by the faots that the
marriages were three hundred, and the births one hundred and
twenty eight, fewer than they were in 1889, and that the inhabited
houses as recorded by the census enumerators were fewer than
those shewn by the rate collectors as occupied at the previous Midsummer.