Thus the movements of population were shown by this census of 1881 to be very much on the same lines as those in 1871—a diminution in the central parts, and increases of various magnitudes in the outer parts.
Interesting information was once more given as regarded the constituent parts of the population.
It was shown that of the residents in London in 1881, the proportion of persons born in London was practically the same as in 1871. Of every 1,000 inhabitants in London, 628 were born in London, 308 in the rest of England and Wales, 13 in Scotland, and 21 in Ireland—the rest elsewhere.
The flow of people from the country to London was thus continuing at much the same rate, and the metropolis was still being fed with labour at the expense of the agricultural districts.[149]
“A contingent untrained in the pursuits of town life” was thus annually thrown upon the labour market of London. But they imported a fresh strain of healthy country people into the constituent elements of the town population, and helped to stay part of the deterioration which necessarily ensued from the insanitary conditions of life in London.
As to the causes of the shifting of the population in London, the same story continued to be told by the Medical Officers of Health.
Thus the Medical Officer of Health for the Strand wrote (1882–3):—
“The material decrease in population is largely connected with the gradual transition of houses from residences into business premises, the construction of new and wider thoroughfares, and the erection of public buildings, combined with the resulting consequence inevitably associated with such changes, a considerable augmentation in the rental or annual value of house property.”
In St. James’ (1882)—