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CHORLEY, FEBRUARY, 1908.
TO THE RURAL DISTRICT COUNCIL OF CHORLEY.
Gentlemen,
In reviewing the vital statistics for the thirty-two years that I have
been Medical Officer of Health to the Chorley Rural District Council, and
the Chorley Rural Sanitary Authority, the most striking features are the
great decline in the Birth-rate that has been steadily going on during the
last twenty years, and the decrease in the Death-rate which has been
satisfactory, though not so marked as that in the Birth-rate.
The same condition has prevailed throughout England, and whilst
the decline in the Birth-rate is to be deplored, the lower Death-rate, and
especially the decreasing rate from such diseases as Typhoid Fever, gives
evidence that the labours of your predecessors and yourselves have not been
in vain, more especially when you consider that the average duration of
life has increased within this period.
The number of Births registered in the Rural District of Chorley
in 1907 was five hundred and thirteen (513), two hundred and sixty-nine
(269) of which were Males, and two hundred and forty-four (244) Females.
Eleven (11) Births were illegitimate, that is about two per cent.,
as compared with three per cent. of illegitimate Births in 1906. The Birthrate,
calculated upon an estimated population of 21,000 on July 1st, 1907,
was 24.43 per thousand, the lowest Birth-rate that I have ever had to
record.
The Birth-rate in your District in 1906 was 25.96, and the average
Birth-rate for the ten years preceding 1907 was 27.8, more than three (3)
per thousand higher than the Birth-rate of 1907.
Throughout England and Wales the Birth-rate in 1907 was 26.3 per
thousand of the estimated population, which, though the lowest Birth-rate
recorded for the country was nearly two (2) per thousand higher than the
Birth-rate obtaining in your District. Excluding the large and small towns
the Birth-rate for the more rural portions of England was, in 1907, 25.6 per
thousand, that is 1.2 per thousand higher than the rate calculated for your
District.
I give in Table I. (Local Government Board Tables), appended to this
Report, the number of Births and Birth-rates for 1907 and the ten preceding
years, and the average number and rate for the decade, and in Table A the
number of Births and Birth-rates in each Sub-District during 1907 and the
preceding three years.