[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell].

  • St. Giles Camberwell (Parish : Surrey, England)
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: City of London, London Metropolitan Archives

    24/86 (page 22)
    22 which the employment of the uncorrected totals would have yielded. I have shewn in former reports that the population of the parish of Camberwell has (like that of the other peripheral parishes of London) increased much more rapidly than the population of the more central districts, much more rapidly than the population of the metropolis taken as a whole, much more rapidly even than the population of the Southern group of districts; that no comparison of Camberwell with the rest of London can be fair unless the relative rates of increase be taken into the account; and that the increase of Camberwell, and still more the increase of its sub-districts, are liable to fluctuations which defy all mathematical rules, and render any estimates of their population far less trustworthy than the estimates made for more extensive and populous areas. Now the population of Camberwell was, in April, 1861, 71,488, and it had increased during the previous ten years by the addition of 16,821 persons, or 30.77 per cent. The increase for London during the same period had been 18.7 per cent. What then was the mean average population of Camberwell during 1803? or (what is always taken to represent the same thing) what was its population in the middle of the year? If Camberwell had increased since April, 1801, at the same rate as London itself is assumed to have increased, its population at the end of June, 1863, would have amounted to 74,048. If it had increased at the same rate as the Southern group of districts increased between 1851 and 1861 (viz. at 2.28 percent. per annum), its population would have amounted to about 75,155 If it had increased at the same geometrical rate at which it increased during the last decenniad, its population would have amounted to not much less than 76,437.* * I have not performed the calculation leading to this result quite accord¬