BRITAIN’S BIG TOWNS

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 80, 28 December 1921, Page 7

BRITAIN’S BIG TOWNS

WHAT THE CENSUS FIGURES SHOW.

The census figures of 1921 establish Birmingham definitely as the second town in England and Wales. With a population of 919,438. she is beaten only by London, Glasgow and Calcutta within the Empire and perhaps by not many more than a score of cities in the whole world.

Yet twenty years ago we reckoned Birmingham as but fourth among the English towns, with little more than half a million people, says a writer in the “Daily Mail.’’ Birmingham’s jump, a decade ago, past Liverpool and Manchester, to near the million mark was achieved, of course, by a discreet extension of boundaries and not by a sudden great increase in the number of people. Still, there has been a very fair increase within ths- Newer Birmingham, to the tuno of 79,(160, during the past ten years. This is not only the biggest actual increase in any town in England except London but also the biggest percentage increase in the larger towns. And Birmingham, having beaten Liverpool and Manchester in the population race, looks to be growing so healthy that in another generation she may even beat Glasgow and become the second city in the Empire. The present census leaves Liverpool and Manchester in the places they occupied at the last. Liverpool, with 863,118, comes a good third after London and Birmingham, and has a comfortable lead over Manchester, with 736,006. And as the increase in Liverpool during tho ten years was 49,000 and the increase in Manchester only IG,OOO, Liverpool seems secure in the third place for some time to come.

But the great difference of 3,666,660 between Greater London (7,406.666) and the County of London (4,400,660) shows that census figures are not always a true index to the size of a town.

Judge Liverpool as the urban area on both sides of the Mersey and throw into Manchester Salford and one or two other places that are practically indistinguishable from her, and you have in each case a population of over a million, far bigger than Birmingham’s and at least as big as Glasgow’s. And so it is always open to a good Liverpudlian or a good Manchester man to claim that his city, is second not only in England but in the Empire as well. At the last census Sheffield got just ahead of Leeds. Now, with 490,660 against 458,000, Sheffield seems to be running away from her West Riding rival, and there is no doubt as to which is the fifth city in the country. And Bristol keeps the seventh place easily with 377,000 against West Ham's 300,000. But Bradford (285,000), long the despair of those who like to see a good birth rate, has fallen fr<sm the ninth place to the tenth, having been overtaken by Hull (287,000). Neweastlo-on-Tyne (274,000) and Nottingham (262,060) remain 11 and 12, but Portsmouth (247.600) has gone up to 13 abos-e Stoke-on-Trent (240,000). Leicester (234.190) establishes a hare lead oyer Salford (234,150), after being 4000 behind nt the last census. Plymouth keeps the seventeenth place with 209.000, and Caidiff comes up to be the eighteenth town with over 200,000 inhabitants, thoni’b tlto excess here is only 262. With Glasgow and Edinburgh and Dublin and Belfast added to the English cities and io Cardiff we have in the British Isles 22 in all with a population of over 200,000. But do we see our provincial towns as big as they really are. Because thov lack a metropolitan status, wo rarely give them ermlit for being, as is the case, much bigger than most of the capitals of the world We compare them with London and not with the cities of other countries, and so see them dwarfed.