It is difficult to say exactly when the Continuous Mortality Investigation began, beyond saying that the first report of the Committee was on the experience of assured lives in 1924–29. There are, however, some earlier developments which are worth following, although it is still difficult to know where to start recording the process of evolution.

If we start in the Institute of Actuaries Year Book we find that the Bureau was established soon after the 1914–18 war. However, in the Presidential Address of the late W. P. Phelps published in J.I.A. 54 there was a reference to a decision having been taken by the Institute and the Faculty in 1912–13, and a perusal of various Minutes of the Institute Council during the period immediately prior to the 1914–18 war yields much information. But perhaps we should start even earlier than that.