[Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Guernsey.

  • Guernsey (Channel Islands). Council.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Guernsey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/20 (page 6)
    General Le Cocq, Chairman; Jurat Ozanne, Rev. H. W. Brock, and Messrs. Valpied, Collenette, J. W. Dorey, Collas and Foote, with the Supervisor as ex-officio member. POPULATION OF GUERNSEY. The exact population of Guernsey for the middle of the year 1899 is difficult to gauge accurately, as it is now eight years since a census enumeration of the population has been taken. Calculating the population on the basis of the rate of increase between 1881 and 1891, we obtain as the civil population, 37,381. By a return, kindly given me by Colonel Bell, C.B., Government Secretary, there were 524 soldiers in the Island on the 1st of July. The total population may thus be estimated at 37,905. As there is no return of the number of inhabited houses for the years since the census in Guernsey, it is impossible to check this result by a comparison obtained on the basis of the average number of persons per house, as obtained in the census of 1891. NATURAL INCREASE—IMMIGRATION—EMIGRATION. The number of births from 1881 to 1891 in Guernsey, was 10,013 and the number of deaths 6,617, showing a natural increase of the population of 3,396. The actual increase during the same time was 2,636. A consideration of these figures shows that, as the natural increase is in considerable excess of the actual increase, the emigration from the Island during the 10 years was in excess of the immigration by 760. This is in part accounted for by the fact that there was a larger number of soldiers in the Island on the former occasion than on the latter by 123, but this is only a small proportion of the total. In 1881, the population of persons of foreign birth amounted to 4,942, and in 1891 to 6,318, showing an increase of 1,376, which must of necessity be composed wholly of immigrants. Adding to this the excess of natural increase, we find that the number of emigrants during the ten years was approximately equal to 2,013, or about 200 persons a year. In the years 1891-1899 there have been 9,095 births and 5,326 deaths, leaving a natural increase of 3,769* The estimated actual increase during the same time is 2,585, which bears approximately the same ratio to the natural increase as obtained between the years 1881-1891. DEATHS—ALL CAUSES. 671 deaths have been registered throughout the Island during the year 1899, which corresponds on the estimated population to a death rate of 17*7. Guernsey has a large proportion of persons of advanced age among whom the IV.—1900. c