Griffith Davies (5 December 1788 - 25 March 1855) was a noted actuary.
Griffith Davies (5 December 1788 - 25 March 1855) was a noted actuary.
Davies, son of Owen Davies, farmer and quarryman (1761–1854), was born at the foot of Cilgwyn mountain, in the parish of Llandwrog, Caernarfon, on 5 December 1788. As most children at that time, he was taught to read and spell at a Welsh Sunday school. At the age of seven he commenced learning English at a school where he paid two shillings and sixpence per quarter. The poverty of his parents meant that he had to work for his living, and until 1808 he was a farm labourer, horse driver, and quarryman, obtaining at intervals some education and private study.
Having saved a little money he left Wales, and, arriving in London on 15 September 1809, attended a school to perfect himself in writing and grammar, but took no special interest in any subject except arithmetic.
In January 1810 he obtained an engagement at Mr. Rainhall's school as teacher of arithmetic, at a salary of 20l., and there commenced calculating the times of the eclipses and exhibiting their mode of occurrence by diagrams. He opened a school of his own in the summer of 1811 in James Street, Old Street; in the following year moved into a better house in Lizard Street, Bartholomew Square, St. Luke's, and joined the Mathematical Society in Crispin Street, Spitalfields, where the extensive library was of much use to him. Meanwhile, he corrected the press of a Welsh magazine then published, and wrote his ‘Key to Bonnycastle's Trigonometry’ (1814), which established his character as a mathematician.
After this he received private pupils, and among them a person connected with an assurance office desirous of studying the theory of life assurance. Davies had no knowledge of the subject, but soon mastered it. Sir John Franklin came to Davies after many years of service at sea to increase his knowledge of some of the higher branches of the science of navigation. Davies now gave instruction to several gentlemen connected with insurance associations, and was employed to do work for some of the offices. William Morgan, the actuary of the Equitable, furnished him with a certificate of actuarial competency. In 1820 he received the large silver medal of the Society of Arts for a most ingenious sundial constructed by him. The Directors of the Guardian Assurance Company applied to him for advice and assistance when drawing up their constitution, and he was engaged to construct the necessary tables. About the close of 1823 he was appointed the regular and permanent actuary of that company, an appointment which he held for nearly a third of a century. In the same year (1823) the Reversionary Interest Society was established, and for this company he constructed many elaborate and useful tables. In the first of his reports to the founders of that institution he announced that he had ‘ascertained upon indubitable evidence that a diminution had taken place in the mortality of Great Britain during the last hundred years.’ In 1825 he published ‘Tables of Life Contingencies, containing the rates of mortality among the members of the Equitable Society, and the value of life annuities, reversions, &c. computed therefrom; together with a more extensive scale of premiums for life assurance, deduced from the Northampton rate of mortality, than any hitherto published, and the progressive values of life policies.’ Davies was the remodeller of George Barrett's columnar plan of constructing mortality tables, and so arranged his tables that they may almost be said to be a new discovery (WALFORD, Cyclopædia, i. 618–23). Davies's fame as an actuary became widely known.
In 1829 the directors of the East India Company submitted the documents concerning the Bombay military fund for his investigation and report, and from this period up to 1851 he was constantly consulted regarding the various Indian funds. He wrote no less than twenty reports on these Indian funds, each containing extensive insurance tables. He was also engaged from time to time for the Bank of England. On 16 June 1831, on the recommendation of Mr.Benjamin Gompertz, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
From about 1847 he suffered from a series of attacks of bronchitis. On 5 December 1854 he was seized with a paralytic stroke, and died at 25 Duncan Terrace, Islington, London, 25 March 1855. He was married twice, and left a son and a daughter.
An actuary is a business professional with advanced statistical skills who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty. The name of the corresponding field is actuarial science. These risks can affect both sides of the balance sheet and require asset management, liability management, and valuation skills. Actuaries provide assessments of financial security systems, with a focus on their complexity, their mathematics, and their mechanisms.
Actuarial science is the discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in insurance, pension, finance, investment and other industries and professions. More generally, actuaries apply rigorous mathematics to model matters of uncertainty.
Life insurance is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death of an insured person. Depending on the contract, other events such as terminal illness or critical illness can also trigger payment. The policyholder typically pays a premium, either regularly or as one lump sum. The benefits may include other expenses, such as funeral expenses.
Benjamin Gompertz was a British self-educated mathematician and actuary, who became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Gompertz is now best known for his Gompertz law of mortality, a demographic model published in 1825. He was the brother of the early animal rights activist and inventor Lewis Gompertz and the poet Isaac Gompertz.
The Equitable Life Assurance Society, founded in 1762, is a life insurance company in the United Kingdom. The world's oldest mutual insurer, it pioneered age-based premiums based on mortality rate, laying "the framework for scientific insurance practice and development" and "the basis of modern life assurance upon which all life assurance schemes were subsequently based". After closing to new business in 2000, parts of the business were sold off and the remainder of the company became a subsidiary of Utmost Life and Pensions in January 2020.
Under European Union law, an annuity is a financial contract which provides an income stream in return for an initial payment with specific parameters. It is the opposite of a settlement funding. A Swiss annuity is not considered a European annuity for tax reasons.
William Morgan, FRS was a Welsh physician, physicist and statistician, who is considered the father of modern actuarial science. He is also credited with being the first to record the "invisible light" produced when a current is passed through a partly evacuated glass tube: "the first x-ray tube".
James Dodson FRS (c.1705–1757) was a British mathematician, actuary and innovator in the insurance industry.
John Finlaison (1783–1860) was a Scottish civil servant, government actuary and the first president of the Institute of Actuaries.
Joshua Milne (1776–1851), was an English actuary.
Peter Gray (1807?–1887), was a Scottish writer on life contingencies.
The Rev. John Thomas Becher, was an English clergyman, social reformer and Vicar-General of Southwell Minster from 1818 to 1840.
Sir George Francis Hardy was a British actuary, Egyptologist and amateur astronomer. He became a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1877 and was President of the Institute of Actuaries from 1908 to 1910.
George MacRitchie Low FRSE PFA (1849-1922) was a Scottish actuary. He twice served as President of the Faculty of Actuaries 1900 to 1903 and was recalled during the First World War serving a second term 1915 to 1919.
William Joseph Graham was an American insurance executive, who was Vice President of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. He is known as "father of group insurance," and as past-president of the American Management Association.
The International Life Assurance Society was a 19th-century British insurance company. Its operations in the United States, particularly in the state of Massachusetts, caused it to play a major role in the development of insurance regulation in that country.
Sir Henry Harben was a British pioneer of industrial life assurance.
William Thomas Thomson FRSE FFA (1813–1883) was a 19th-century Scottish actuary who was manager of the Standard Life Assurance Company 1834 to 1878 and changed the face of insurance through use of mortality rates. His use of actuarial tables became common practice across the globe in the field of life insurance.
Herschell E. Filipowski, also known as Tzvi Hirsh Filipowski, was a Lithuanian-born British Jewish Hebraist, editor, mathematician, linguist and actuary.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Davies, Griffith". Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
