[Report 1917] / Medical Officer of Health, Reigate Borough.

  • Reigate (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1917] / Medical Officer of Health, Reigate Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/24 (page 4)
    SECTION I. VITAL STATISTICS. Population.—The Registrar-General credits the Borough with a population of 26,397 for purposes of cal¬ culating the birth rate, and 23,680 for the death rate, the latter being 2,500 below the corresponding estimated popu¬ lation for 1916, and nearly 5,000 below the population at the census of 1911. How far either of these estimates may be approximately correct is a matter for conjecture. It can probably be safely said that the birth and death rates calculated therefrom are decidedly unreliable. There has been an excess of births over deaths amounting to 714 between Jan. 1914 and Dec. 1916, and there has been appreciable immigration of a permanent or semi-permanent nature during 1917. A considerable influx occurred during the latter half of 1917, though, in the case of temporary visitors, probably forming the majority, births and deaths that arise among them are mostly credited to the districts where their permanent homes are situated, and they are not properly included in the local population. The applications for sugar tickets at the end of the year corresponded to a population of about 26,000, including inmates of public institutions, and the presence of men and women engaged on Government work must have compen¬ sated partially for men who have joined the Services. Births. —Three hundred and fifty seven births were actually registered in 1917, the number, when corrected for births of Reigate babies occurring elsewhere, and of babies born in the Borough properly belonging to other localities, being 358. Of these 178 were males and 180 females, a somewhat unusual proportion. Among them were 34 illegitimate births, a higher proportion than has previously been recorded. The number 358 compares with 466 in 1916, and a mean of 462 for the five years 1912-16. There