Tenements
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Scope of the Inquiry
,—At each of the last three censuses the schedule has contained a question as to the number of rooms in the occupation of the family1
enumerated thereon, "but in 1891 and 1901 the inquiry was confined to such families as occupied less than five rooms; in 1911, however, every
occupier was required to state the number of rooms in the occupation of his family, although only such schedules as related to private families have been tabulated. For the first time, too, a definition of the term "room" was attempted, the instruction on the schedule reading: "Count the kitchen as a room, but do not count scullery, landing, lobby, closet, bathroom, nor warehouse, office, shop." The limitation of the inquiry in 1891 and 1901 to tenements of less than five rooms and the absence of any definition of the word room must have led to some amount of understatement in those years of the families occupying tenements of four rooms or less, the former because in all cases where the inquiry was not answered it had to be assumed that the tenement consisted of more than four rooms and the latter because of the tendency both in 1891 and 1901 to stretch the term room "to cover a landing, a lobby, a closet, or any other more or less distinct space within a building" (see page 39 of the General Report on the Census of 1901). On the other hand, the exclusion, in 1911, of "non-private families" (that is institutions, schools, business establishments, etc.), can have but little effect on the comparability of the figures, as it is extremely unlikely that many of the excluded tenements consisted of less than five rooms. It should be noted that the statistics contain no information as to the size
of the rooms occupied, though this obviously has considerable bearing on the health and comfort of the inhabitants, and there is reason to believe that it varies in different parts of the country; nor has it been practicable to show the age or sex of the inhabitants of the various sized tenements, though a step has been taken in this direction by distinguishing children under 10 years of age in Table 3 of Volume VIII. which relates to London, the County Boroughs,-and other large towns. A "dwelling" or "tenement" was defined in the instructions issued to the enumerators as a place in which any person entitled to receive a schedule usually lives,'' and the persons entitled to receive a schedule, and therefore for census purposes regarded as heads of families, were stated to be: (a)
Every head of a family occupying the whole or part of a house or flat, (b)
Every separate lodger occupying a room or rooms in a house or flat (where two or more lodgers shared a room, or rooms, they were treated for census purposes as a single family), (c
) Every resident caretaker of a house to be let, of a shop or of other business premises, or of a public building, (d)
Every outdoor servant (with or without family) occupying separately any building or rooms in a building, such as a lodge, gardener's cottage, dwelling-rooms over a coach-house or stable, etc., which is detached from the house to which it belongs or has no internal communication therewith, (e)
Every resident proprietor, manager or head of an hotel, club, business establishment, school, etc. (f
) The chief resident officer of every institution, (g)
The master or person in charge of every barge, boat, or other vessel. The families under headings (a)
to (d)
have in the tabulation of tenement statistics been treated as "private families," those under heading (e)
as "private" only when the domestic members of the occupier's family exceed the non-domestic (i.e.
, trade servants, visitors, scholars, etc.), and those under headings (f
) and (g)
have been treated as "non-private" families. England and Wales
.—The number of private families in England and Wales was Stated on page 24 to be approximately 7,970,660, and to comprise a population of 34,776,402; these figures, which reckoned as "private" all census families, other than those in institutions, vessels, etc., containing 15 persons or less, were put forward only as providing reasonably close approximations to the facts. It will be seen that these criteria are somewhat different and that the tenement tables give more accurate figures for fewer areas, while the population tables give less accurate figures for a larger number of areas. The number of private families, as defined in the preceding paragraph, was found to be 7,943,137, and to contain a population of 34,606,173. The difference, which amounts to 27,623 and 170,229 respectively in England and Wales as a whole, is not considerable in the individual Urban and Rural Districts, except in very few cases, and is due: In Table 67 of the Summary Volume the 7,943,137 private families in England and Wales are classified according to the number in the family and to the number of rooms they occupy; the following table shows these facts as proportions of 100,000 private families. The table reads as follows: Of 100,000 tenements occupied by private families in England and Wales 3,207 consist of one room, 8,314 of two rooms, 13,948 of three rooms, and so on; 5,328 were occupied by families of one person, 16,161 by families of two persons, 19,282 by families of three persons, and so on; of the 3,207 one-roomed tenements, 1,547 were occupied by families of one person, 933 by families of two persons, etc.; and of the 5,328 families of one person, 1,547 occupied tenements of one room, 1,293 of two rooms, and so on. It will thus be seen that the commonest size of tenement is that consisting of four rooms, which forms nearly 25 per cent, of the whole; about 21 per cent, consist of five rooms, and nearly 14 per cent, of three rooms and of six rooms, so that over 73 per cent, of the total tenements are of three to six rooms. As regards the size of family it appears that 19 per cent, of the total private families consist of three persons, 18 per cent, of four persons, 16 per cent, of two persons, 14 per cent, of five persons, and 10 per cent, of six persons, and that no less than 78 per cent, of the total consist of from two to six persons. Nearly 60 per cent, of the tenements are of three to six rooms, occupied by families of from two to six persons. By multiplying the number of persons in the family by the number of families the population in families and tenements of various sizes can be obtained; this has been done in Table LXIV. and the facts reduced to proportions per 100,000 of the population in Table LXV. TABLE LXIV—ENGLAND AND WALES—POPULATION IN PRIVATE FAMILIES AND TENEMENTS OF VARIOUS SIZES.
The most numerous class of tenement, that of four rooms, contains a larger proportion of the population (24.7 per cent.) than any other, notwithstanding the slightly larger total number of rooms in the five-roomed tenements (Table LXIII). Five-roomed tenements come next with 224 per cent, of the population, followed by six rooms (14.8 per cent.), and three rooms (12.8 per cent.); thus 75 per cent, of the population live in tenements of from three to six rooms. Only 14 per cent, live in one-roomed tenements, and 6-1 in two-roomed tenements, leaving over 17 per cent, to be housed in the tenements consisting of more than six rooms. Turning to the population in various sized families we find that the family of four persons contains the highest proportion of the population (16.64 per cent.), being closely followed by the family of five persons (16-55 per cent.); next in order come the families of six persons (14.3 per cent.), three persons (13.3 per cent.), and seven persons (11.2 per cent.); so that 72 per cent, of the population are members of families of from three to seven persons. Persons living alone form 1.2 per cent, of the population, while persons living in families of more than ten are over 3 per cent, of the total. It is interesting to observe that a larger proportion of the population are members of families of four persons living in tenements of four rooms than of any other similar group, and that over 50 per cent, of the population are members of families of from three to seven persons living in tenements of from three to six rooms. The following diagram shows the proportion of private families living in tenements of various sizes to the total number of private families, and the proportion of the population living in tenements of various sizes to the total population in private families, the areas of the circles being proportionate to the numbers of families and the numbers of persons respectively. It will be noticed that the numbers of families in tenements of one to four rooms form in each case a smaller proportion of the total than the numbers of persons in tenements of the same sizes; in other words, the families in tenements of fewer than five rooms are below the average size, and those in tenements of five or more rooms are above the average size. DIAGRAM XXXV.—Proportions per cent, of private families, and of population in private families living in tenements of various numbers of rooms.
Average Number of Occupants per Room.
—As will be seen from Table LXIV., there are wide variations in the number of occupants per room, ranging from the 2,639 persons who have ten rooms or more each to the 36 persons each of whom shares one room with eleven others. The following statement shows the average
number of occupants per room in the various sized tenements, from which it will be seen that the average number of occupants gradually diminishes from 1-90 in the one-roomed tenements to 0.56 in the nine-roomed, and that the average number of occupants per room in all tenements of less than ten rooms is 0.95. Table LXVI. shows for tenements of less than ten rooms the number of persons living under various conditions of room accommodation and the proportion of those numbers to the total population in private families. Dividing the population occupying less than ten rooms into three main classes it will be seen that the persons living in tenements with less than one occupant per room form nearly 32 per cent, of the total population in private families; those where there is from one to two persons per room form 54 per cent.; and those having more than two occupants per room about 9 per cent. This last class has, in previous Census Reports, been spoken of as "overcrowded," though, in the absence of information as to the size of the rooms occupied, the justification of the term may be open to question. It will, however, be convenient again to adopt this standard for comparative purposes, and it will be interesting to see whether there was good reason for excluding the larger tenements on previous occasions on the assumption that in them there would be little overcrowding. Comparison with previous Censuses.
—Consideration of the facts shown in Table LXVII., which presents the tenement statistics for the three past censuses in summary form, suggests that both in 1891 and in 1901 there must have been considerable understatement of the tenements of less than five rooms, for it will be seen that whereas tenements of less than five rooms formed 52.3 per cent, of the total in 1891, falling to 46.8 in 1901, in 1911 they rose to 50.0 per cent.; or put in another way, between 1891 and 1901 and between 1901 and 1911 the total tenements increased by 14.8 per cent, and 13.8 per cent, respectively, while the tenements of less than five rooms increased by only 2.5 per cent, in the earlier decade and 21.8 in the later. Further, in spite of the acknowledged improvement in housing conditions, tenements of three rooms having more than two occupants per room appear to have increased both numerically and proportionally, while those of four rooms in this class have increased absolutely but not proportionally between the censuses of 1901 and 1911. The explanation of the understatement Is of course the fact that at previous censuses the question as to numbers of rooms occupied was confined to occupiers of less than five rooms, and when the question was unanswered it was assumed that the tenement consisted of five rooms or more. The apparent increase in the proportion of tenements of less than five rooms between 1901 and 1911 is wholly accounted for by the increase in tenements of three and four rooms, the tenements of one and two rooms which declined between 1891 and 1901, still further declining between 1901 and 1911. The population in tenements of less than five rooms declined from 45.1 per cent, of the total in 1891 to 39.9 in 1901, but rose to 43.1 per cent, in 1911. Tenements of more than four rooms containing more than two occupants per room form 0.3 per cent, of the total and house 0.8 per cent, of the population. Column 6 of the following table shows that in each sized tenement of less than five rooms there are, on the average, a smaller number of persons than in 1891 or in 1901, which is indicative of the general rise in the standard of comfort. Aggregates of Urban and Rural Districts
.—Having briefly considered England and Wales as a whole, we may now consider its broad division into Urban and Rural Districts. The following tables present the facts given in Table LXIII. in the form of proportions per 100,000 tenements in the aggregates of Urban and Rural Districts. The predominance of the four-roomed tenement which was noticed in England and Wales is seen in both its urban and rural portions, being more marked in the latter than in the former owing to the prevalence of the four-roomed country cottage; the proportion of each size of tenement above four rooms, except that of six rooms, is also higher in the Rural than in the Urban Districts, the proportion of tenements of 10 or more rooms being as much as 73 per cent, higher. The proportion of tenements of less than four rooms is consequently lower in the Rural Districts than in the Urban, one-roomed tenements forming only 0.6 per cent, against 4.0 per cent.; two-roomed tenements 5.6 against 9.1 per cent.; and three- roomed tenements 13.0 against 14.2 per cent. Dividing the tenements into groups of less than four rooms, from four to six rooms, and over six rooms, we find the proportions are 27, 59 and 14 per cent, respectively in the Urban Districts, and 19, 62 and 19 per cent, respectively in the Rural Districts. Both in the Urban and in the Rural Districts the family of three persons is more numerous than any other, being followed in both cases by the family of four persons and then by the family of two persons. The proportions of families of one, two and three persons are higher in the Rural than in the Urban Districts, as are also those of twelve or more persons to a family, the proportion of the latter being more than 20 per cent, higher in the Rural than in the Urban Districts. These excesses are necessarily balanced by the families of from four to eleven persons being somewhat lower in the Rural than in the Urban Districts. It is a rather remarkable fact that, in spite of the large number of lodgers in the large urban centres, there should be more people, in proportion, living alone in rural than in urban areas. In the country as a whole, 38.1 per cent of the persons living alone were males and 61.9 per cent, females; in the aggregate of Urban Districts the proportions were 36.5 and 63.5 per cent, respectively, and in the aggregate of Rural Districts 43.0 and 57.0 per cent, respectively. The following table affords a means of -comparing the chief tenement statistics of the Urban Districts as a whole with those of the Rural; but the figures bring out nothing that might not be expected from the greater value of space in town than in country, which is reflected in the higher proportion of small tenements, in the higher average number of occupants per room, and in the greater frequency of tenements with more than two persons per room in the Urban than in the Rural Districts. The average number of occupants per room in all tenements of less than ten rooms is 0.97 in the aggregate of Urban Districts and 0.89 in the aggregate of Rural Districts, ranging in the Urban Districts from 1.91 in the one-roomed to 0.56 in the nine-roomed tenements, and in the Rural from 1.57 in the one-roomed to 0.57 in the nine-roomed. Tenements with more, than two occupants per room form 5.8 per cent, of the whole in the aggregate of Urban Districts, but only 3.5 per cent, in the aggregate of Rural Districts, the population so housed amounting to 9.3 per cent, of the whole in the towns as against 6.3 in the country districts. The sizes of tenements chiefly so occupied are, in the Urban Districts those of two and three rooms, and in the Rural Districts those of three and four rooms. TABLE LXX.—TENEMENTS OF VARIOUS SIZES, ETC., IN THE AGGREGATES OF URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS.
Although, owing to the extension of Urban District boundaries, it is impossible to give tenement statistics for previous censuses for the aggregates of Urban and Rural Districts as they existed at the census of 1911, an interesting and a truer comparison may be obtained by comparing tenement figures for the districts which were urban in 1891 with those which were urban in 1901, and with those which were urban in 1911, and similarly with the rural districts. Some allowance must be made for the greater completeness of the figures on the present than on previous occasions. It will be seen that both Urban and Rural Districts contributed to the decline in the one and two-roomed tenements, and to the increase since 1901 in tenements of three and four rooms, as well as to the increase of three- roomed tenements with more than two occupants per room, which have already been noticed in the case of England and Wales. The following table gives the means of comparing the average amount of room accommodation in England and Wales, London, the totals of County Boroughs, other Urban Districts and Rural Districts, from which it will be seen that the Rural Districts are in the most favourable position and London in the least, and that conditions in the lesser Urban Districts are better than those in the County Boroughs. County of London,
—The tenement statistics for the County of London show considerable variations from those for the country as a whole, the most noticeable feature being the predominance of the smaller tenements. Of 1,000 tenements occupied by private families in London, 541 are of less than four rooms, 324 of from four to six rooms, and only 135 of more than six rooms; in England and Wales as a whole the proportions are 255, 593 and 152 respectively. Tenements of one room form 13.5 per cent, of the total against 3.2 in the country at large, and tenements of two room 19.2 per cent against 8.3. Moreover, while in England and Wales the highest proportions are those of four and five rooms, their place is taken in London by the two and three-roomed tenements. Tenements of less than four rooms contain 43.3 per cent, of the private family population of London; tenements of four to six rooms contain 38-8 per cent., and tenements of more than six rooms 17.9 per cent.—the proportions in the country as a whole being 20,3, 61.9 and 17.8 per cent, respectively. The 43.3 per cent. living in tenements of less than four rooms, are made up of 6.24 per cent, living in tenements of one room, 15.84 in tenements of two rooms, and 21.20 per cent, in tenements of three rooms. As in the case of England and Wales as a whole the commonest size of family is that of three persons (184 per cent.), though it is only slightly more frequent than that of two persons (18.0 per cent.). Persons living alone form 9-3 per cent, of the families of London, and it is interesting to observe that of persons living alone the females outnumber the males to the extent of 58,594 to 37,130. Further details of the distribution of tenements, families, and population of the County of London are contained in the following tables: That the predominance of the smaller tenements is not wholly due to the greater proportion of small families in London than in England and Wales is apparent on comparing the figures in the above Table with those in Table LXV. and the unfavourable housing conditions in London compared with the rest of the country are also shown in Table LXXII, and from the following statement showing the average numbers of occupants per room. It will be seen from Table LXXII that the population living in tenements with less than one person per room, which in England and Wales forms 31.7 per cent, of the total, in London forms only 20.63 and that the population in tenements having more than two persons per room, which was 9.1 per cent, in the country as a whole, is 17.7 per cent, of the population of London. Children -under Ten Years of Age.—
At previous censuses no information was published as to the ages of the occupants of tenements, but on the present occasion it was decided to tabulate the number of children under ten years of age in the families and tenements of various sizes for the more important towns in the country, and Table 3 of Volume VIII. contains the result of this tabulation for London and the Metropolitan Boroughs, for the County Boroughs, and for all other Urban Districts whose population exceeded 50,000 persons in 1911. Except for the County of London the numbers of children under ten years of age are shown only for tenements of less than five rooms, and for those of five rooms or more containing more than two occupants per room, but the figures for the remaining tenements have only been omitted from considerations of space, and are available for each County Borough and each town of over 50,000 inhabitants in the same detail as for London. It would appear from the table relating to London, that in nine cases the "family" consisted entirely of children under ten years of age, which at first sight might seem to be an error; but it was, unfortunately, true that in six cases one child was left alone in the tenement for the night, in two cases two children were left, and in one case four children. In most of these cases the schedules were signed by occupiers of neighbouring tenements and usually endorsed "Parents away," though one schedule bore the pathetic note: "Father and mother in prison," and another "Mother in infirmary," The proportion per cent, of children under ten years of age to the total population in each size of tenement is given in the following statement, from which it will be seen that the proportion of children is highest in the tenements of two rooms and gradually diminishes as the size of the tenement increases. The proportion of children under ten years of age to the total population in families of various sizes rises to a maximum of 27.0 per cent in families of eight and nine persons. The figures are as follows:— It should be mentioned that while children under ten years of age form 20.7 per cent, of the population of tenements of all sizes, they form 38.2 per cent, of the population of tenements containing more than two occupants per room. The following table gives the means of comparing the tenement statistics for the County of London at each of the last three censuses. It will be seen that the proportions of one and two- roomed tenements have declined since 1901, but that tenements of three and four rooms have increased, and that while the one-and two-roomed tenements containing over two persons per room have diminished, those of three and four rooms have apparently increased slightly, though how far this may be due to an actual increase and how far to under-statement owing to the form of the return in 1901, it is not, unfortunately, possible to say.. The average number of occupants per room, which declined between 1891 and 1901, still further declined between 1901 and 1911 for all tenements of less than five rooms. Principal Cities of the United Kingdom
.—Always remembering that the statistics do not, for obvious reasons, take account of the sizes of rooms, it will be interesting to compare the tenement figures for the capital with those for other of the great cities of the United Kingdom. The warning is especially necessary in the case of Scotland, where, as is well known, the rooms are very much larger than they are in England. It should also be pointed out that the Scottish figures relate to the accommodation designed for the occupation of a single family, even when occupied by more than one family, and, in accordance with this principle, all lodgers have, at this census, been treated as members of the family with whom they lodge. The Scottish figures relate, therefore, to "houses"2
whereas the English figures, as previously stated, relate to tenements, or the accommodation actually in the occupation of a single family. The figures in the Irish Census Report relate to tenements of one, two, three and four rooms and of five rooms and upwards; in the case of Dublin 24 per cent, and in the case of Belfast 66 per cent, of the total tenements fall within the latter category. In order that the relative sizes of the cities compared may be borne in mind, the following table gives the actual tenement figures for London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, while, for convenience of comparison, subsequent tables deal with the principal tenement statistics for these cities as proportions. It will he seen that one-roomed tenements predominate in Dublin, two-roomed in Edinburgh and Glasgow, three- roomed in London and Birmingham, four-roomed in Manchester, and five-roomed in Liverpool. The highest percentages of one-roomed tenements are in Dublin (33.9), Glasgow (20.0), and London (13.4); of two-roomed in Glasgow (46.2), Edinburgh (31.6), and Dublin (21.0); and of three-roomed in Birmingham (30.5), Edinburgh (21.9), and London (21.3). Tenements of from one to three rooms number over half of the total tenements in Glasgow, where they reach 85.1 per cent., in Dublin (654), Edinburgh (62.9), and London (53.7), whereas in Belfast they form only 9.7 per cent., and in Manchester 15.0 per cent. In Manchester 40.6 per cent, of the tenements are of four rooms, and in Belfast the proportion is 23.9 per cent. Of tenements of over six rooms Liverpool has the highest proportion (14.1), followed by London (13.3), and Edinburgh (11.8), while Glasgow has the lowest (3.6). Edinburgh has, in proportion, more tenements of ten rooms or over than any of the other great cities of Great Britain. The following table, giving the proportions of families of various sizes per 1,000 total families, shows that the proportion of families of one person is far higher in London than in the other cities, though it is fairly high in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and would undoubtedly be higher but for the practice alluded to above, of treating "lodgers" as members of the family under whose roof they lodge. In London and Edinburgh the family of three persons has the highest proportion; in Liverpool and Birmingham the family of four persons prevails, and in Glasgow and Manchester there is an equal proportion of families of three and of four persons, and these are higher than any others. The proportion of population living more than two in a room to the total population was 5.5 in Belfast, 7.0 in Manchester, 9.5 in Liverpool, 9.8 in Birmingham, 16.8 in London, 31.1 in Edinburgh, 37.9 in Dublin, and 53.6 in Glasgow; the figures for the two Irish cities relating only to tenements of less than five rooms. The Metropolitan Boroughs.—
An examination of Tables 68 to 72 of the Summary Volume reveals very wide variations in housing conditions in the various parts of London. In Finsbury 279 out of every 1,000 tenements consist of only one room, while in Lewisham the proportion is only 35; in Hampstead there are 229 out of every 1,000 tenements consisting of 10 or more rooms, in Bethnal Green there are only two; in Lewisham less than 4 per cent, of the population live in tenements with more than two occupants per room, while in Finsbury the proportion is nearly 40 per cent. One-roomed tenements form more than 20 per cent, of the total in Finsbury, Holborn, St. Marylebone, St. Pancras, and Shoreditch, and less than 5 per cent, in Lewisham, Wandsworth and Woolwich. Three-roomed tenements predominate in Battersea, Camberwell, Deptford, Fulham, Hackney, Hammersmith, Lambeth, Paddington, Poplar, and Stoke Newington; four-roomed in Greenwich, Wandsworth, and Woolwich; five-roomed in Lewisham; while in Hampstead the proportion of tenements with 10 or more rooms far exceeds any other. In the City of London and in the remaining 13 boroughs the two-roomed tenement bears the highest proportion. The following table shows the six boroughs having the highest proportions of tenements of certain sizes. TABLE LXXIX.—METROPOLITAN BOROUGHS HAVING THE HIGHEST PROPORTIONS OF TENEMENTS OF CERTAIN SIZES.
If we similarly divide the families into three groups of under four persons to a family, from four to six persons, and over six persons to a family (see Table 70), it is interesting to observe that the six boroughs with the highest proportions of medium-sized tenements are among the first seven having the highest proportions of medium- sized families, ranging from 41.1 per cent, in Battersea to 45.0 per cent, in Lewisham. Small families of one to three persons range from 38 per cent, in Stepney and 40 per cent, in Poplar, to 58 per cent, in Westminster, in Holborn, and in the City of London. Famines of over six persons range from 9.5 per cent, in the City and 10.9 per cent, in Holborn, to 20.1 in Bethnal Green and 22.6 in Stepney. Families of one person form over 15 per cent, of the total families in Holborn, St. Marylebone, Chelsea and Westminster. Room Accommodation.
—The following table, which is condensed from Table 72, also brings out very clearly the contrasts in the housing conditions of the people in the different Metropolitan Boroughs. In Hampstead nearly one-third of the private- family population dwell in tenements of 10 rooms or more, in Kensington over one-fourth, and in Westminster over one-fifth, whereas in Bethnal Green only three per 1,000 dwell in such sized tenements, in Bermondsey and Shoreditch only four per 1,000, and in Poplar and Stepney only six per 1,000. Lewisham, Wandsworth, Stoke Newington and Woolwich, while not having such high proportions of population living in tenements of this size as Hampstead, Kensington, and Westminster, have a good proportion residing in tenements providing more than one room per occupant. The proportion of persons living more than two in a room is least in Lewisham, Wandsworth, Woolwich and Hampstead, and highest in Finsbury, Shoreditch, Stepney and Bethnal Green; in Finsbury it amounted to 399 per 1,000, of whom 126 were in tenements having over two but not over two-and-a-half per room, 138 in tenements having over two-and-a-half but not over three, 52 in tenements having over three but less than four, and 83 in tenements where the occupants average four or more per room. The only Boroughs which underwent any alteration of boundary between 1901 and 1911 were Hackney and Wandsworth, and as these alterations were so slight as to be practically negligible, the figures given in Table 42 of the Appendix to the 1901 Report may be repeated here for comparison with the figures obtained at the present census. It will be seen that only in the Boroughs of Chelsea, St. Marylebone, and Woolwich does the proportion of tenements of less than five rooms not show an increase, and only in the City of London and in eight of the Boroughs is there an apparent-diminution in the proportion of the population living more than two in a room. These facts, pointing to an Apparent deterioration of housing conditions, taken in conjunction with the fact that the number of inhabited buildings in London increased, while the population diminished, support the intrinsically probable supposition that in 1901, when a return of the number of rooms was demanded only for tenements of less than five rooms, the omission of this return in -regard to many of such tenements led to understatement of their number. Administrative Counties
.—(a) Sizes of Tenements.
—Table 68 of the Summary Volume shows for each Administrative County and its aggregates of Urban and Rural Districts and for each County Borough and large town the proportion of tenements of various sizes per 1,000 total tenements, from which it will be seen that in the majority of counties the proportion of four-roomed tenements is higher than any other, though there are also many in which the five- roomed tenement prevails, four (Northampton, Soke of Peterborough, Carmarthen and Glamorgan) where the proportion of six-roomed tenements is highest, and two (London and Northumberland) where the three-roomed tenement predominates. One-roomed tenements, occupied largely by lodgers, are most common in London, where they form 13.5 per cent, of the whole and house 6.2 per cent, of the population; the only other counties in which they exceed 2 per cent, being Northumberland (4.3), Middlesex (3.6), East Sussex (2.6), Surrey (2.3), and Durham (2.1). Two-roomed tenements are common in Northumberland (23.6 per cent.), Durham (21.6), London (19.2), Pembrokeshire (12.9), Denbighshire (12.3), Cardiganshire (11.9), Anglesey (10.8), and the West Riding of Yorkshire (10.5); and three-roomed in Northumberland (28.0),Durham (26.9),Shropshire (22.8), London (214), the West Biding (18.5), Merionethshire (17.0), Montgomeryshire (16.7), Cumberland (164), and Middlesex (16.1). At the other end of the scale, tenements with ten or more rooms form more than 8 per cent, of the total in Radnorshire, East Sussex, Herefordshire, Westmorland, Devonshire, Surrey, and the East Riding of Yorkshire, Radnorshire being the highest with 11.5 per cent. The majority of tenements consist of from four to six rooms, amounting, in the country as a whole, to about 60 per cent., while in Derbyshire, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire the proportion exceeds 75 per cent. In only six counties, namely London, Northumberland, Durham, Cardiganshire, Anglesey and Radnorshire, is the proportion of these tenements less than one-half. The following is a statement of the counties having the highest and of those having the lowest proportions of tenements of less than four rooms, of four to six rooms, and of over six rooms respectively. TABLE LXXXII.—COUNTIES WITH THE HIGHEST AND LOWEST PROPORTIONS OF TENEMENTS OF CERTAIN SIZES.
Had the counties been grouped according to the proportion of population in the various sized tenements from Table 69 the lists would have been substantially the same. High proportions of small tenements may be due either to (a)
a large number of small houses, (b)
a large amount of sub-letting, or (c)
both causes combined. The extent to which sub-letting prevails in each Urban and Rural District and in each Administrative County may be inferred from the number of families and of separate buildings shown in the tables contained in the sixth volume of the Report (Buildings of Various Kinds). The tenements there however are not classified as to size, so that it is impossible to say precisely to what extent the proportion of small tenements is increased by sub-letting, but of the eight counties shown in Table LXXXII. as having the highest proportions of small tenements, two only (London and Northumberland) show an amount of sub-letting higher than the average for England and Wales, so that in all the other cases the houses, must, in the main, be smaller than in the rest of the country. The proportion of small tenements is so high in Northumberland that there both causes must contribute to the result. By comparing the numbers of families with the numbers of houses in the volume referred to, it is seen that there was considerably more sub-letting in Urban than in Rural Districts. The proportion of small tenements in the aggregate of Urban Districts, when London and the County Boroughs are included, is 273 per 1,000, against 191 in the Rural Districts. When London and the County Boroughs are excluded, however, the proportions are nearly equal, the excess of sub-letting in the smaller Urban Districts being almost counterbalanced by the larger proportion of small houses in the Rural Districts. Although there is so little difference between the proportion of small tenements in the aggregates, of Urban and of Rural Districts in the country as a whole, some very wide differences are apparent when the urban and rural portions of individual counties are considered; and it is curious that in spite of the slightly higher proportion of small tenements in the Urban Districts as a whole, there should be 42 counties in which the proportion is higher in the rural than in the urban portion. These 42 include most of the agricultural counties, though some mining and industrial counties are conspicuous, while the group of counties, having the higher proportion of small tenements in the urban portion includes the metropolitan counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey and Kent, some mining and industrial counties, and a few agricultural counties. (b) Sizes of Families.
—Table 70 of the Summary Volume classifies the tenements according to the size of the family occupying them, and shows for each Administrative County, etc., the proportion, in 1,000 families, of families of each number of persons up to 12. The following statement groups these figures into families of less than four persons, families of four to six persons, and families of over six persons, and shows which counties have the highest and which the lowest proportion of each. TABLE LXXXIII.—COUNTIES WITH THE HIGHEST AND LOWEST PROPORTIONS OF FAMILIES OF CERTAIN SIZES.
It will be observed that the lists do not correspond with the groups arranged according to size of tenement given in Table LXXXIL, but that, on the contrary, five of the counties shown as having the highest proportions of large famines appear in the list of counties Having the lowest proportions of large tenements. The counties having the highest proportions of small families are all agricultural, while those having the highest proportions of large families are all mining and industrial. The table indeed shows particularly well the effects of the scarcity of house accommodation and the high birth-rates of the coal-mining areas, Glamorganshire, Monmouthshire and Durham for instance all coming at the foot of the list of counties having small families and at the top of those with large and medium-sized families. (c) Room Accommodation.
—Tables 71 and 72 of the Summary Volume afford means of comparing room accommodation in Administrative Counties, County Boroughs, etc., Table 71 by giving the average number of occupants per room in the tenements of various sizes, and Table 72 by showing the proportions of the population living under various conditions as regards room accommodation. From Table 71 it will be seen that the average occupants per room range from 0.73 in the Isle of Wight, 0.75 in Cardiganshire and the Soke of Peterborough, 0.79 in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire (Holland), West Sussex and Westmorland, to 1.01 in the West Riding, 1.03 in Monmouthshire, 1.14 in London, 1.29 in Northumberland, and 1.34 in Durham. Whichever table is examined the greater comfort as regards room accommodation of the predominantly rural and agricultural counties over the mining and industrial counties is at once apparent. While Table 69 shows that the highest proportions of population living in tenements consisting of more than six rooms occur in Radnorshire, Cardiganshire, Westmorland, East Riding, Devonshire and Montgomeryshire, and the lowest in Durham, the West Riding, Northumberland, and Lancashire, the following statement shows that the rural counties; also have the highest proportions of the population with at least one room per person, and the lowest proportion with less than one room for two persons, while the reverse is the case with the mining and industrial counties. Although, taking the counties as a whole, housing conditions would appear to be better in the rural and agricultural counties than in the mining and industrial, it is a somewhat significant fact that in the agricultural counties it is the rural portions which contribute most to overcrowding, while the reverse is usually the case in the industrial counties. For example, the proportion of population living more than two to a room is 41 per 1,000 in the Rural Districts of Bedfordshire, against 21 in the Urban, in Cambridgeshire 54 against 21, in East Suffolk 44 against 19, and in Wiltshire 58 against 30, while in Monmouthshire the proportions of population living more than two in a room are 87 and 41 per 1,000 in the Urban and Rural Districts respectively; in Northumberland, 304 and 252; in Staffordshire, 97 and 61; and in the West Riding, 109 and 83. Owing to the understatement of tenements of less than five rooms at previous censuses, it would be misleading to institute comparisons between the tenement figures for the Administrative Counties in 1901 and 1911. The following considerations prove, we think, that the understatement has been pretty general. Judged by the figures for tenements of less than five rooms, 25 of the 62 Administrative Counties showed no improvement in the matter of overcrowding as indicated by the proportion of population having more than two in a room, while in London, Cumberland and. Radnorshire, in spite of a decreasing population and an increasing number of inhabited buildings, the figures shown an increase in the proportion of overcrowding. Where improvement is recorded it is, in the majority of cases, very slight, but it is satisfactory to find that the returns from Durham, Northumberland, and the West Riding, where overcrowding is still very prevalent, point to amelioration in those areas. County Boroughs and Large Towns
.—(a) Sizes of Tenements.
—A town being as a rule a much more homogeneous area than a county it is natural to expect the proportions of tenements of certain characteristic sizes to rule higher than in the counties, and this is soon apparent from an examination of the figures. In Oldham, for instance, 66.2 per cent, of the tenements consist of four rooms, in Blackburn, 61.2 per cent., in Bury, 59.2, in Bolton 53.8, and in Stoke-on- Trent, 53.6. The five-roomed tenement is most common in Edmonton (474), Barrow-in-Furness (39.8), Beading (39.0), Nottingham (38.7), Lincoln (38.6), Enfield (36.8), and Ilford (35.9); and the six-roomed in Northampton (51.7), Leicester (51.2), Ipswich (46.8), Norwich (41.1), and Handsworth (41.0). Grouping the' tenements as before, we find that nearly 90 per cent, are of from four to six rooms in Blackburn, and over 80 per cent, in Derby, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Burton-upon- Trent, Smethwick, Stoke-on-Trent, Walsall, Swindon, and Rotherham, while 28 other towns in Table 68 of the Summary Volume have between 70 and 80 per cent of such tenements, Tenements of less than five rooms comprised more than 70 per cent, of the total in twelve of the large towns (including London); while in twelve others the proportion was below 25 per cent. The proportions in these towns were as follows:— The highest proportions of tenements of more than six rooms are found in the seaside towns of Wallasey (37.4), Bournemouth (37.0), Blackpool (35.4), Southend on Sea (33.8), Southport (29.2), Great Yarmouth (28.0) and Eastbourne (27.8), and in the suburban towns of Hornsey (41.0), Baling (31.7), and Wimbledon (26.4). The proportion of tenements of fewer than five rooms to the total tenements is shown for all the large in Diagram XXXVI. (b) Sizes of Families.—
In the absence of local knowledge, it is impossible to explain the wide variations in the sizes of families in the County Boroughs and large towns revealed in Table 70 of the Summary Volume, families of less than four persons ranging from 256 per 1,000 in St. Helens to 522 in Devonport, those of four to six persons from 367 in Bath, to 485 in Ilford, and families of more than six persons from 98 in Halifax to 292 in St. Helens. The following table shows the towns having the highest and those having the lowest proportions of each of these classes of families, and it may be noticed that the towns with a high proportion of small families, except Devonport and Plymouth, have a low birth-rate, and those with a high proportion of large families have a high birth-rate. TABLE LXXXV.—TOWNS WITH HIGHEST AND LOWEST PROPORTIONS OF FAMILIES OF CERTAIN SIZES.
(c) Room-Accommodation.
—As might be expected, Table 71 of the Summary Volume shows that the average number of occupants per room is higher in the towns than in the counties, the average ranging from 0.72 in Great Yarmouth, 0.75 in Ipswich and in Bournemouth, and 0.76 in Oxford, Blackpool and Hornsey, to 1.24 in St. Helens, 1.29 in Tynemouth, 1.34 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and in Sunderland, 1.38 in South Shields, and 1.40 in Gateshead. The foregoing table, derived from Table 72, shows the towns having the highest and those having the lowest proportions of population living under various conditions as to room- accommodation. It will be seen that just as Durham and Northumberland were among the Counties with the highest proportions of overcrowding, so the County Boroughs associated with them have more overcrowding than any others, the proportion of the population having less than one room for two persons being over 30 per cent, in Gateshead, South Shields, Sunderland, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Tynemouth, while in no other town does it exceed 20 per cent., the nearest approaches being Plymouth (17.6), St. Helens (16.9), Devonport (16.2), and West Ham (15.3). In Diagram XXXVII. the proportions of the population living under various conditions of room- accommodation are shown for all the large towns given in Table 72 of the Summary Volume. The population living in tenements of 10 or more rooms is for clearness in the diagram included with that in tenements having an average of less than one person per room. Comparing the order of the towns as shown by Diagrams XXXVI. and XXXVII respectively, it will be seen that although, as might be expected, the towns with a high proportion of small tenements were generally those with a high proportion of their population living under crowded conditions, i.e.
, averaging more than two persons per room and conversely, yet the correspondence is by no means complete. Thus, taking the twelve highest towns in either diagram, nine of them will be found among the first twelve in the other. Similarly at the other end of the scale a low proportion of 1-4 room tenements is associated with a low proportion of crowded population, eleven of the 15 towns at the bottom of one list being found among the 15 lowest in the other list. With regard to the exceptions it may be noted that Oldham and Rochdale which were respectively eighth and ninth in order of their proportion of 1-4 room tenements were respectively forty-seventh and forty-eighth in order of their proportion of population averaging more than two persons per room. Other cases in which the proportion of small tenements (1-4 rooms) was relatively much higher than the proportion of crowding (more than two persons per room) were Blackburn, Bury, Bolton, Stockport, Coventry, and Swindon. Towns in which the greatest difference in the opposite direction occurred were Liverpool, Barrow-in- Furness, Bootle, Edmonton, and Rhondda, in all of which the proportion of over-crowded population was relatively much higher than the proportion of small tenements. Table 9 in Volume VIII. of the Report gives for a few of the largest towns the population and number of children under ten years of age having under various conditions of room-accommodation in tenements of various sizes, and demonstrates that the proportion of children increases with the increase of persons per room. No doubt large families tend to cause overcrowding when the income of the family does not permit of accommodation commensurate to its size. Tenements with more than two occupants per room in Urban and Rural Districts
.—In the first column of the main tenement table (Table 2 in Volume VIII.) will be found for each Urban and Rural District throughout the country the number of tenements containing more than two occupants per room, the population living in them and the proportion per cent, that this bears to the total population in private families. In a very few of the smaller Urban Districts there are absolutely no tenements so occupied, and in 34 other cases the proportion of population so housed amounts to less than one per cent., though the only towns having a population exceeding 10,000 where the rate is so low are Bedford, Cleethorpe with Thrunscoe, Wanstead, Morecambe, Heaton Norris, and West Bridgford. Conditions are worst among the Urban Districts of Durham and Northumberland, where in seven cases the proportion is upwards of 40 per cent., amounting in Seghill in Northumberland to 46.1 per cent.; the rates are also high in many of the West Riding towns, in some cases exceeding 20 per cent. Outside these counties overcrowding is highest in Haydock in Lancashire (25.2 per cent.), Sedgley (20.0 per cent.) and Quarry Bank (18.5 per cent.) in Staffordshire, Dawley (184 per cent.) in Shropshire, and Carlisle (18.1 per cent) in Cumberland. Among Rural Districts those in Durham and Northumberland show the highest proportions, rising in Easington Rural Distort to 37.6 per cent.; outside these counties the highest proportions of overcrowding are in the Rural Districts of Wakefield (18.2), Halifax (17.0), and Hemsworth(16.2) in the West Riding; Longtown (14.7) in Cumberland; Wrexham(144) and Chirk (14.3) in Denbighshire; and Kingswinford (14.0) in Staffordshire. In no Rural District is the proportion of the population so housed less than 1 per cent., but in 25 cases it is less than 2 per cent. 1
For census purposes, a family is considered to be all the persons enumerated on a given schedule, and includes boarders, visitors, servants, etc.; the number of families is therefore equivalent to the number of schedules collected. 2
Defined as "every dwelling (1) with a distinct Outside Entrance
from a street, court, lane, road, etc., or (2) with a door opening directly into a Common Stair or Passage
." If any such dwelling were sub-divided and occupied by different families the Scottish enumerators were instructed to reckon it as only one house.V. TENEMENTS.
Number of rooms in tenement.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
1 to 9
rooms.Average number of occupants per room.
1.90
1.59
1.33
1.08
0.95
0.78
0.68
0.61
0.56
0.95
—
Average Number of Occupants per room in tenements of:
1
rooms.2
rooms.3
rooms.4
rooms.5
rooms.6
rooms.7
rooms.8
rooms.9
rooms.1 to 9
rooms.England and Wales
1.90
1.59
1.33
1.08
0.95
0.78
0.68
0.61
0.56
0.95
London
1.92
1.71
1.37
1.19
1.03
0.87
0.72
0.65
0.59
1.14
No. of rooms per Tenement.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10 or
more.Total.
Children per cent. of total population
16.7
27.4
27.2
23.1
19.0
15.6
13.0
10.8
9.1
6.4
20.7
No. of persons in
Family.1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15
& up-
wards.Total.
Children per cent.
of total
population0.0
1.3
14.3
21.0
24.2
25.8
26.7
27.0
27.0
26.4
25.6
24.2
21.6
18.8
12.5
20.7
Towns in which 1-4 room tenements
were more than 70 per cent. of the
total.Per
cent.Towns in which 1-4 room tenements
were less than 25 per cent. of the
total.Per
cent.South Shields
83.1
Blackpool
24.2
Gateshead
82.9
Southport
24.1
Dewsbury
80.1
Great Yarmouth
23.9
Devonport
79.6
Burton-on-Trent
22.5
Newcastle-on-Tyne
79.3
Wallasey
22.4
Sunderland
78.5
Derby
21.8
Tynemouth
76.3
Ipswich
19.5
Oldham
75.1
King's Norton and Northfield
18.7
Rochdale
72.5
Northampton
18.5
Huddersfield
71.8
Ilford
17.6
Plymouth
71.7
Leicester
17.5
London
70.2
Handsworth (Staffs)
15.2