[Report 1907] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley (Union) R.D.C.

  • Barnsley (England : Unitary authority). Rural District Council.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1907] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley (Union) R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    To Meteorological. Statistics. SBavnslep TfZiival Bistvict Council. The year 1907 earned notoriety in the newspapers as a year without a summer. In statistical language there were only 15 hot days when the temperature reached or exceeded 70° Fahrenheit. Of these 2 were in May, 1 in June, 9 in July, and 3 in August. In 1906 there were no fewer than 53 such days, and the average number for the past 39 years is 37’5. Furthermore June was a wet month with 25 days on which rain fell; while July, though it had a smaller total amount of rain, had no fewer than 20 days on which enough fell to be measured (‘01 inch or or over), September was the driest month with ‘45 inches of rain on 9 days, and fortunate were those who could get in their harvest in September, for October proved the wettest month in the year with 5‘28 inches on 24 days. The days of frost were a little below the average, most of them being in January and February. A short spell of warm weather at Easter (end of March and beginning of April) made the middle part of April, with its north-east winds and corresponding unpleasant cold, very trying to elderly people. November and December were still more unpropitious, short periods of warm weather alternating with rather longer periods of cold weather, so that no one got properly acclimatised to the cold. Pro- bably this was the starting point of the Influenza epidemic which was to become so universal in the first months of 1908. However the ill effects had not culminated before December 31st, so the death-rate for the year, for England, and Wales is the lowest hitherto recorded. The number of warm days on which 50° Fahrenheit, or more, was registered, was a little above the average, while the earth 4 feet below the surface only reached the critical temperature of 56 on 5 days, as compared with 56 days, the average for 15 years. The population of your District in the middle of 1907 I estimate to have been 4500 persons, distributed as follows : Carlton 2490, Woolley 1030, Notton 280, Stainbro’ 500, and Billingley 200.