The year before Sprague, in 1852, the Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman had been P G Tait (as well as the Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University and the founder of the mathematical theory of knots, Tait was a director of the Scottish Provident Institution, a life insurance company in Edinburgh ) and the year after, in 1854, the world-famous physicist, Clerk Maxwell had been second Wrangler ( Routh being the Senior ), the two Smith's Prizes of 1854 being shared equally between these two eminent men. Sprague was elected a Fellow of St John's College following his attainment, in 1853, of the position of Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman at Cambridge University (first place among those attaining first class honours in mathematics ). Thiele's law, where x x x is the age and μ x \mu_ μ x = A e − B x + C e − D ( x − E ) 2 + F G x
The Thiele 1871 mathematical formula was not bettered until the 1980s. Thiele stated, for the first time, a mathematical formula expressing the force of mortality throughout the whole of life. Thiele was from 1872 to 1910, among other appointments, the chief actuary of the Danish insurance company Hafnia. Ī particularly memorable translation, from Danish, is Sprague's translation of Dr T N Thiele's 1871 paper on mortality. In addition, he published eight pure mathematical papers: and in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and six papers in the Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society:, ,, , and. ĭr Sprague published some eighty papers in the Journal of the Institute of Actuaries and, including articles, Presidential Addresses, translations, comments and reviews for this and other actuarial journals (Transactions of the Faculty of Actuaries, Transactions of the Actuarial Society of Edinburgh ), his published contributions to actuarial science must number over one hundred. He wrote the major 19 th century work on the preparation of life office accounts in conformity with the 1870 Act. documents available to the public ) and was opposed to there being any Government regulation prescribing the manner of valuation of policy liabilities.
Dr Sprague was one of the foremost advocates of the principle of 'Freedom with Publicity' (i.e. preparation of a revenue account and balance sheet every year in prescribed form to be filed with the Board of Trade, Required a separate "long-term fund" and required the:. an investigation into the financial condition of a life insurance company to be made regularly by an actuary, The 'select period' was five years.ĭr Sprague pioneered the important 1870 Life Insurance Companies Act which was introduced following the notorious insolvencies of both the Albert and the European life assurance companies. the 'select period' and 'age attained' ). From this study, he produced, in 1879, the first Select Tables of Mortality which were the first two-dimensional mortality tables ever published (the two dimensions being 'insured duration' i.e. This study resulted in the Institute of Actuaries Life Tables (the so-called Twenty Offices Table ) which was published in 1869. This established an international actuarial notation.ĭr Sprague was the main person behind a mortality study covering the experience of twenty U. Thomas Sprague was the dominant actuary of the second half of the 19 th century, his supremacy unrivalled.ĭr Sprague was the main person behind the International Actuarial Notation which was adopted unanimously at the 2 nd International Congress of Actuaries in 1898. They had six children (Mary, Margaret, James, Charles, William and Alfred ) Thomas Bond Sprague married Margaret Vaughan Steains, daughter of James Steains, at St Mary, Edge Hill, Lancashire on 13 April 1859.
Thomas Bond Sprague had six younger siblings: Mary (born about 1831), William (born about 1833), Robert (born about 1834), John (born about 1835), Frances (born about 1837) and Caroline (born about 1839). His mother was Ellen Sprague (born about 1801). Biography Thomas Bond Sprague's father was Thomas Sprague (born about 1801) who was a stationer.
0 kommentar(er)
