“The fact cannot be burked that many of the better classes have gone further into the country to live, induced to do so by the increased facilities for travelling that railways have provided…. The same facilities have also checked the influx of people to the same extent as formerly, so that now in northern London people are flocking to Hornsea and Hampstead and thereaway.”
The fact was that the metropolis had burst its boundaries, and just as it had grown up around the “City” so now the “outer ring,” as it was called, was growing up around it.
How little reliance could be placed on the intercensal estimates of Medical Officers of Health as to the number of inhabitants and the death-rate, is illustrated by the following passage from the report of the Medical Officer of Health for Islington in 1891:—
“There was an error amounting to nearly 50,000 in the estimated population of the parish in 1891; consequently all statistics based on the estimated figures during the decade 1881–91 are more or less erroneous.”
Also “the mortality returns were not kept in such a manner as to lead to accuracy, for while all deaths of non-residents were excluded, the deaths of residents dying outside the district in similar institutions were not included.
“It is impossible to make an accurate statement as to the correct meaning of the mortality returns—the returns are erroneous.”
A similar miscalculation was made by the Vestry of St. George, Hanover Square. In their report for 1890–1 they stated that they had no reason to believe that the population was much different from what it was in 1871 and 1881. The census, however, showed that it had fallen over 11,000.
In each successive census the number of inhabited houses in London was enumerated. In this one the number was 547,120—being an increase of nearly 60,000; but not much instruction was to be obtained from such general figures beyond the fact that houses were becoming more and more densely packed.
The substitution of blocks of dwellings for small houses had also made considerable progress during the intercensal period.[174]
The same reasons as to the diminution of the number of houses in the central parts of London continued to be given by Medical Officers of Health.