Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T05:55:25.922Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Calculating Profession: Victorian Actuaries among the Statisticians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Timothy L. Alborn
Timothy L. Alborn
Affiliation:
Department of HistoryHarvard University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Historians of science naturally tend to express interest in other forms of intellectual activity only when these intersect with science. This tendncy has produced a number of enlightening studies of what happens when science and (for instance) law or theology come into contact, but little by way of how science enters into the calculations and social status of such forms of knowledge after the conjuction has passed. Recent work in the sociology of professions, in contrast, has focused attention precisely on those moments when the expert knowledge produced by different group does not overlap. This has been the contribution of Andrew Abbortt's theory of “jurisdictional boundaries” between competing professions. The case of Victorian actuaries who worked hard to maintain unique intellectual claims in the competitive life insurance industry while maintainiing strong social connections and overlaps in knowledge with organized science, challenges the way both historians of science and sociologists of professions view contending knowledge claims. By observing what motivated actuaries to forge an alliance with men of science in the 1820s, then tracing their gradual recognition of a need to distance themselves from certain of the “scientific” values that had earlier informed their collective identity, it is possible to make sense of connections as well as disconnections between science and other forms of knowledge. A history of quantification from the actuaries' perspective, in other words, allows us to view science both as and in context.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1994 , pp. 433 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, Andrew. 1988. The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Actuaries, Club. 1848–1983. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Actuaries' Club, Institute of Acuaries Library mss. 3 vols.Google Scholar
Adler, Marcus N. 1864. “Government Life Annuities and Life Assurances Bill.” Assurance Magazine 12:3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alborn, Timothy L. 1989 “Negotiating Notation: Chemical Symbols and British Society, 1831–1835. Assurance Magazine 12:3–32.Google Scholar
Alborn, Timothy L. 1991. “The Other Economists: Seioence and Commercial Culture in Victorian England.” Ph.D, dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Anon. 1850. “Reports of Life Insurence Companies.” Assurence Magazine 1:87–103.Google Scholar
Anon. 1851. “The Institute of Actuaries.” Assurance Magazine 2:119–36, 262–71.Google Scholar
Anon. 1853. “Review of E.Sang, Essays on Life Assurance.” Assurance Magazine 3:260–64.Google Scholar
Anon. 1868a. “Institute of Actuaries.” Assurance Magazine 14:333–39.Google Scholar
Anon. 1868b. “Review of Cornelius Walford, insurance Guide and Handbook” Assurance Magazine 14:409–15.Google Scholar
Anon. 1869a. “The Albert life Assurance Company.” Westminister Review 93:532–50.Google Scholar
Anon. 1869b. “Institute of Actuaries.” Assurance Magazine 15:161–65.Google Scholar
Anon. 1869c. Life Assurance Companies: Their Financial Condition Discussed. London: E. Wilson.Google Scholar
Anon. 1871. “Unbiassed Notes on Life Assurance. London: Houlston and Sons.Google Scholar
Anon. 1872. “Institute of Actuaries.” Journal of the Institute of Actuaries 17:145–49.Google Scholar
Barlow, Thomas. 1855. “Memoir of the Late Griffith Davies, Esq.” Assurance Magazine 5:337–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beer, Max. 1920. A History of British socialism. 2 vols. London: Bell.Google Scholar
Berman, Morris. 1987. Social Change and Scientific Organization: The Royal Institution, 1799–1844. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Samuel. n.d. Is the Present Competition in Life Assurance Advantageous to the Public? London: W.S.D. Pateman.Google Scholar
Brown, Samuel. n.d. 1850. “Annuities and Assurances.” Assurance Magazine 1:20–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Samuel. n.d. 1852a. “On the Collections of Data in Various Branches of Assurance.” Assurance Magazine. 2:200–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Samuel. n.d. 1852b. “On the Uniform Action of the Human Will, as Exhibited by Its Mean Results in Social Statistics.” Assurance Magazine 2:341–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Samuel. n.d. 1854a. “On a Simple Plan of Classifying the Policies of a Life Assurance Company.” Assurance Magazine 2:283–91.Google Scholar
Brown, Samuel. n.d. 1854b. “On the Sufficiency of the Existing Companies for the Business of Life Assurance.” Assurance Magazine 4:10–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burridge, A. F. 1895. Annals of the Actuaries' club. London; privately printed.Google Scholar
Campbell-Kelly, Martin. 1993. “Large-scale Date Processing in the Prudential, 1850–1930.” Accounting, Business and Financial History 3:117–39.Google Scholar
Carpenter, William. 1860. “Actuaries and Their Institute.” The Policyholder 1:264–65.Google Scholar
Champness, William. 1879. An Insurance Dictionary. London: Thomas Murby.Google Scholar
Crisford, G. S. 1880. Untitled excerpt from Insurance Record reprinted in Journal of the Institute of Actuaries 22:188–90.Google Scholar
Cullen, Michael. 1975 The Statistical Movement in Early Victorian Britain: The Foundations of Empircal social Research. New York: Barnes & Noble.Google Scholar
Daston, Lorraine J. 1988. Classical Probability in the Enlightenment. Princeton N.J.:Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daston, Lorraine J. 1992. “Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective.” Social Studies of Science 22:597–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Morgan, Augustus. 1838. Essay on Probabilities, and on Their Application to Life Contingencies and Insurance Offices. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
De Morgan, Augustus. 1839. Penny Cyclopaedia, S.V., “mortality, law of.”Google Scholar
De Morgan, Augustus. 1872. A Budget of Paradoxes. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
De Morgan, Sophia. 1882. Memoir of Augustus De Morgan. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Desmond, Adrian. 1989. The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Deuchar, J. W. 1882. “A Sketch of the History of the Science of Life Contingencies.” Transactions of the Insurance and Actuarial Society of Glasgow 1:35–71.Google Scholar
Downes, J. J. 1862. An Account of the Processes Employed in Getting out the Mortality Experience of the Economic Life Assurance Society. London: privately published.Google Scholar
Edmonds, Thomas. 1832 Life Tables Founded upon the Discovery of a Numerical Law, Regulating the Existence of Every Human Being. London: J. Duncan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edmonds, Thomas. 1860. “on the Discovery of the Law of Human Mortality.” Assurance Magazine 9:170–84.Google Scholar
Eyler, John. 1979. Victorian Social Medicine: The Ideas and Influence of William Farr. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Farr, William. 1860. “On the Construction of Life Tables.” Assurance Magazine 9:121–41.Google Scholar
Farren, E. J. 1850. “Mental Statistics, or Edinburgh in 1850.” Assurance Magazine 1:113–14Google Scholar
Galloway, Thomas. 1841 Treatise on the Tables of Mortality Deduced from the Experience of the Amicable Society London.Google Scholar
Gompertz, Benjamin. 1820 “Sketch of an Analysis and Notation Applicable to the Value of Life Contingencies.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 110:214–94.Google Scholar
Gompertz, Benjamin. 1825. “On the Nature of the Function Expressive of the Law of Human Mortality, and on a New Mode of Determining the Value of Life Contingencies.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 115:513–85.Google Scholar
Guardian Life Assurance Company. 1821–1873. General Court Minute Book, Guildhall Library mss. 12 vols.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1990. The Taming of Chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herschel, John. 1830 A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. London: Longman, Rees, Orman, Brown, & Green.Google Scholar
Hewat, Archibald. 1893. On Training for the Insurance Profession. Dublin: Insurance Institute of Ireland.Google Scholar
Hunter, Adam. 1865. The Fruits of Amalgamation Exhibited in the Correspondence of a Palladium Policy-holder with Charles Jellicoe. Edinburgh: Edmonton & Douglas.Google Scholar
Institute of Actuaries. 1848–1865. Council Minute Book, Institute of Actuaries Library mss. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Institute of Actuaries. 1866. Discussions at the Institute of Actuaries, Session 1866–66. London: Institute of Actuaries.Google Scholar
Jellicoe, Charles. 1853 Evidence in Report of the Select committee on Assurance Assocoiations. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Jellicoe, Charles. 1854. “Rate of Mortality in the Eagle Insurance Company.” Assurance Magazine 4: 199–215.Google Scholar
Jellicoe, Charles. 1858. “On the Principles Which Should Govern Assurance Companies in Amalgamating.” Assurance Magazine 7: 254–58.Google Scholar
Jones, Jenkin. 1843. A Series of Tables of Annuities and Assurances, Calculated from a New Rate of Mortality amongst Assured Lives. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Jones, Jenkin. 1847. What Is Life Assurance? Explained by Practical Illustrations of Its Principles…. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Kindleberger, Charles. 1979. Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial crises. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
King, Gregory. [1885] 1902 Institute of Actuaries' Textbook, Part II London: W. Sutton.Google Scholar
Larson, Magali S. 1977. The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazarus, William. 1862. “The law of Human Mortality.” Assurance Magazine 10: 238–85.Google Scholar
Liveing, Edward. 1961. A Century of Insurance: The Commercial Union Group of Insurance Companies 1861–1961. London: Witherby.Google Scholar
Lubbock, John William and Drinkwater, J. E.. 1830. On Probability. London: Charles Knight.Google Scholar
Macfadyen, James. 1870 The Principles Affecting the Solvency of a Life Assurance Company Reprinted from Transactions of the Glasgow Philosophical Society. Glasgow.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, Donald A. 1981. Statistics in Britain: The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Macleod, Roy and Collins, Peter. eds 1981. The Parliament of Science: The British Association for the Advancemant of Science 1831–1931. London: Science Reviews.Google Scholar
Makeham, William. 1866. “On the Construction of Tables of Mortality.” Assurance Magazine 12: 325–58.Google Scholar
Makeham, William. 1867. “On the Law of Mortality.” Assurance Magazine 13: 325–49.Google Scholar
McCay, C. F. 1870. “American Tables of Mortality.” Journal of the Institute of Actuaries 16:20–33.Google Scholar
Milne, Joshua. 1815. A Treatise on the Valuation of Annuities and Assurances on Lives and Survivorships 2 vols. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Mirowski, Philip. 1989 More Heat Than Light: Economics as Social Physics; Physics as Nature's Economics. Birmingham: Birmingham Insurance Institute.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrell, Jack and Arnold, Thackray. 1981. Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, Robert L. and Trubek, David M. 1992. “New Problems and Paradigms in Studies of the Legal Profession.” In Lawyers' Ideals/Lawyers' Practices: Transformations in the American Legal Profession, edited by Nelson, R. L., Trubek, D. M., and Solomon, R. L., 1–27 Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Nicoll, John. 1898. “The Relation of the Actuarial Profession to the State.” Journal of the Institute of Actuaries 34: 158–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orange, A. D. 1975. “The Idols of the Theatre: The British Assocition and Its Early Critics.” Annals of Science 32:277–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, Robin. 1990. “Thrift or Dissipation? The Business of Life Assurance in the Early Nineteenth Century.” Economic History Review 43: 236–54.Google Scholar
Porter, H. W. 1854. “On the Education of an Actuary.” Assurance Magazine 4: 108–18.Google Scholar
Porter, H. W. 1860. “On Some Considerations Suggested by the Annual Reports of the Registrar-General.” Assurance Magazine 9: 12–41, 89–112, 149–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, H. W. 1861. “Mr. Finlaison's ‘Report and Observations on the Mortality of the Government Life Annuitants‘.” Assurance Magazine 9: 277–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, Theodore. 1986. The Rise of Statistical Thinking 1820–1900. Princeton, N.I.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Recknell, G. H. 1948. The Actuaries' Club 1848–1948. London: privately published.Google Scholar
Sprague, T. B. 1858. “On the Terms upon Which the Business of One Insurance Company May Be Equitably Transferred to Another.” Assurance Magazine 7: 301–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sprague, T. B. 1861a. “On Mr. Gompertz's Law of Human Mortality.” Assurance Magazine 9: 288–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sprague, T. B. 1861b. “ On the Recent Imputations Made as to Mr.Gompertz's Accuracy.” Assurance Magazine 10: 32–44.Google Scholar
Sprague, T. B. 1892. “ On Probability and Chance, and Their Connection With the Business Of Insurance.” Transactions of the Actuarial Society Of Edinburgh 3: 87–113.Google Scholar
Supple, Barry. 1970 The Royal Exchange Assurance: A History of British Insurance 1720–1970. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.Google Scholar
Trebilcock, Clive. 1985. Phoenix Assurance and the Development Of British Insurance. 1: 1782–1870Cambridge: Camdridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tucker, Robert. 1862. ”On the Proper Method of Estimating the Liabilities of Life Assurance Companies.” Assurance Magazine 10: 312–22.Google Scholar
Walford, Cornelius. 1871–80. Thr Insurance Cyclopaedia: Being a Dictionary of Terms Used In Connection With The Theory and Practice of Insurance. 6. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Woolhouse, W. S. B. 1862. “on Gompertz's Law of Mortality.” Assirance Magazine 10: 121–30.Google Scholar
Woolhouse, W. S. B. 1866. “ On The Construction Of Tables Of Mortality.” Assurance Magazine 13:75–102.Google Scholar
Woolhouse, W. S. B. 1870 “Explanation of a New Method of Adjustiong Mortality Tables.” Assurance Magazine 15:3897ndash;410Google Scholar
Yeo, Richard. 1993. Defining Science: William, Whewhell, Natural Knowledge, and Public Debate in Early Victorian Britain. Cambridge: Canbridge University Pres.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
young, Thomas. 1891. “On The True Nature and Object Of Insurance.” Transactions of The Birmingham Insurance Institute 1:143–61Google Scholar
young, Thomas. 1896. “The Theory of Evolution Applied to the System of Life Assurance and, Incidentally, to Insurance Generally.” Journal of the Institute of Actuaries 32:248–59.Google Scholar
young, Thomas. 1897. “The Nature and History of Actuariral Wotk as Exemplifiying the Mode Of Development and the Methods Of Science.” Journal of the Institute of Actuaries 33;97–131.Google Scholar