[Report 1909] / Medical Officer of Health, Wallasey Local Board / U.D.C. / County Borough.

  • Wallasey (England). Local Board.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report 1909] / Medical Officer of Health, Wallasey Local Board / U.D.C. / County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/150 (page 11)
    Fart i.—VITAL STATISTICS. Population. I have to repeat what I wrote last year with regard to the difficulty of accurately estimating the population of a rapidly growing district such as Wallasey, and the extreme importance of having an accurate estimate of population, since nearly all mortality rates are calculated per thousand of population. The Census will, in the ordinary course of events, be taken next year, and after that there is good reason to hope that there will be a modified quinquennial census. The population shown by the last three census returns has been as follows :— Census 1881. Census 1891. Census 1901. Poulton-cum-Seacombe ... 7,640 14,900 20,749 Liscard 11,612 16,356 28,661 Wallasey 1,940 1,971 4,169 Entire District ... 21,192 33,227 53,579 The Registrar-General in his estimate of the population presumes that the population is increasing at the same rate as it did between 1891 and 1901. He, of course, cannot possibly take into account local conditions. I have continued to employ the method which was found to give so strikingly an accurate forecast at the time of the last census, namely, of multiplying the number of inhabited houses as supplied from the rate books by the number of inhabitants per house as shown in the last census. The population per house varies very slightly from census to census. At the 1891 census it was 5.2, and at the 1901 census, 4.97. I have thought it advisable to reduce this last figure still further, namely, to 4.75, so as to minimise the chances of over-estimating the population. There are several reasons for think¬ ing that the population of this district is under rather than over¬ estimated. For instance, at the time of the last census the population was just over seven times the number of children on the rolls of the