John Finlaison (Finlayson) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

John Finlaison (1783–1860) was a Scottish civil servant, government actuary

Actuary

An actuary is a business professional who deals with the financial impact of risk and uncertainty. Actuaries provide expert assessments of financial security systems, with a focus on their complexity, their mathematics, and their mechanisms ....

and the first president of the Institute of Actuaries

Institute of Actuaries

The Institute of Actuaries was one of the two professional which represented actuaries in the United Kingdom . The Institute was based in England, while the other body, the Faculty of Actuaries, was based in Scotland...

.

John was born under the name Finlayson, however, was better known under the name of Finlaison.

Early life

John Finlaison, eldest son of Donald Finlayson and Isabella Sutherland, was born in Thurso, Caithness

Caithness

Caithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...

on 27 August 1783.

His father died from an attack of brain fever

Brain fever

Brain fever describes a medical condition where a part of the brain becomes inflamed and causes symptoms that present as fever. The terminology is dated, and is encountered most often in Victorian literature...

on 28 November 1790, at the early age of twenty-nine, leaving his mother a widow, with three children John (seven years), Christian (three years) and William (four months old).

Thurso

At the age of fifteen he was removed from school and apprenticed to Mr Donald Robeson, a writer [solicitor] in the town of Thurso, Scotland. Through his apprenticeship

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...

, John acquired a considerable amount of professional knowledge and learned about regular business habits.

John had a passion for reading at a young age. Much of his leisure hours were devoted to reading, however, during this period in Thurso, books were scarce and expensive. There was no circulating library in the town and, if there were, these were private libraries among the upper classes. Under these circumstances John made the acquaintance of a baker, whose brother was connected with Mackay’s circulating library in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

. The baker organised for boxes of books to be brought to Thurso, which was to John's delight.

Ackergill

In 1802 John was appointed factor

Factor (agent)

A factor, from the Latin "he who does" , is a person who professionally acts as the representative of another individual or other legal entity, historically with his seat at a factory , notably in the following contexts:-Mercantile factor:In a relatively large company, there could be a hierarchy,...

for Sir Benjamin Dunbar (afterwards Lord Duffus

Lord Duffus

The title Lord Duffus was created by Charles II in the Peerage of Scotland on 8 December 1650 for Alexander Sutherland. He was a descendant of the 4th Earl of Sutherland, who fell in battle in 1333. The title is now extinct, although there may be male-line Sutherlands descended from earlier lairds...

) at Ackergill

Ackergill

Ackergill is a settlement in the Wick, Caithness, in the Highland Council area of Scotland.-Economy:NIga be a small village, Ackergill used to have a lifeboat station, which served the increasing volume of shipping that began to pass through the area with the rise of the herring industry at nearby...

in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. The young pupil showed great quickness and aptitude

Aptitude

An aptitude is an innate component of a competency to do a certain kind of work at a certain level. Aptitudes may be physical or mental...

for instruction and soon became a favourite with his teacher.

Sir Bunbar's whole estates along with the Lord of Caithness was entrusted to John's management when he was only nineteen years of age.

Edinburgh

He held this appointment as factor for about twelve months and in August 1804, proceeded to Edinburgh

Edinburgh

in Scotland

Scotland

where he obtained a clerkship in the office of Mr Glen, a writer to the Signet. It is here in the south of Scotland where John is thought to have begun signing his name as Finlaison.

During his stay in Edinburgh, John became attached to his employer's sister Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. James Glen.

To prevent the possibility of opposition from relatives, they informed no one of their marriage intentions and John received the offer of an appointment under the board of naval revision, which enabled him to marry her at once.

Admiralty

John Finlaison and Elizabeth Glen wed in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, in September 1804.

In July 1805, he entered the government service as a clerk to the Naval Commission, the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

. Very soon after his appointment in the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

, he settled a competent annuity

Life annuity

A life annuity is a financial contract in the form of an insurance product according to which a seller — typically a financial institution such as a life insurance company — makes a series of future payments to a buyer in exchange for the immediate payment of a lump sum or a series...

on his mother, which relieved her from anxiety for her subsistence during the remainder of her days. His son, Alexander Glen Finlaison (1806–1892), who was born at Whitehall

Whitehall

Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...

on 25 March 1806. Alexander went on to also become an author and an authority on insurance statistics.

John was shortly thereafter promoted to be first clerk to the commission, and filled that office till the board closed its labours in August 1808. For some time previously he had also acted as secretary to a committee of the board, and in that capacity, although but twenty-three, he framed the eleventh and twelfth reports of the commission (Eleventh and Twelfth Reports of the Commissioners for Revising the Civil Affairs of His Majesty's Navy, 1809; Parl. Papers, 1809, vol. vi.), and was the sole author of the system for the reform of the victualling departments. The accounts had seldom been less than eighteen months in arrears, but by Finlaison's system they were produced, checked, and audited in three weeks, when the saving made in Deptford yard only in the first year, 1809, was 60,000l.

In 1809 he was employed to devise some plan for arranging the records and despatches at the admiralty, and after nine months of incessant application produced a system of digesting and indexing the records by which any document could be immediately found. This plan met with such universal approval that it was adopted by France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, and its inventor received as a reward the order of the Fleur-de-lys from Louis XVIII in 1815 (Baron Charles Dupin, Voyages dans la Grande-Bretagne, 1821, pt. ii. vol. i. pp. 65–67). In the same year he was appointed keeper of the records and librarian of the admiralty, and became reporter and précis writer on all difficult and complicated inquiries arising from day to day.

During the twelve years while he held this post he was also engaged in many other confidential duties. He was desired by Lord Mulgrave to prepare the materials for a defence of the naval administration before parliament

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

in 1810, and with three months' labour collected a mass of information which enabled Mulgrave to make a successful defence. In 1811, Finlaison compiled an exact account of all the enemy's naval forces. Such information had never before been obtained with even tolerable accuracy. Experience proved it to be correct, and it was quoted in parliament as an authority. In the same year he was employed to investigate the abuses of the sixpenny revenue at Greenwich Hospital, a fund for the support of the out-pensioners, and in his report showed that by other arrangements, as well as by the reform of abuses and the abolition of sinecure places, the pensions might be much increased. The subject of the increase of the salaries of the government clerks having twice been forced on the notice of parliament, John Wilson Croker in 1813 directed Finlaison to fully inquire into the case of the admiralty department, when, after six months of close attention, he completed a report, upon which was founded a new system of salaries in the admiralty.

In 1814 he compiled the first official ‘Navy List

Navy List

A Navy List or Naval Register is an official list of naval officers, their ranks and seniority, the ships which they command or to which they are appointed, etc., that is published by the government or naval authorities of a country....

,’ a work of great labour, accuracy, and usefulness. It was issued monthly, and he continued the duty of correcting and editing it until the end of 1821.

In 1815 Dr. Barry O'Meara, physician to Napoleon Bonaparte at St. Helena, commenced a correspondence with Finlaison, his private friend, on the subject of the emperor's daily life.

From 1817 to 1818, John was occupied in framing a biographical register of every commissioned officer in the navy, in number about six thousand, describing their services, merits, and demerits; this work he engrafted on to his system of the digest and index, where it formed a valuable work of reference for the use of the lords of the admiralty. He introduced into the naval record office a hitherto unknown degree of civility towards the public and of readiness to impart information. Having as librarian found many valuable state papers relating to the American war, he was in 1813 induced to attempt the completion of Redhead Yorke's ‘Naval History,’ which was intended to form a part of Campbell

John Campbell (author)

John Campbell was a Scottish author. He contributed to George Sale's Universal History, and wrote a Political Survey of Britain...

's ‘Lives of the Admirals.’ He carried out his design in part by continuing the history down to 1780. This portion of the work was printed for private circulation, but its further progress was abandoned.

On 1 September 1819, Finlaison made a first report to Nicholas Vansittart, in which he demonstrated the great loss that was sustained by the government in granting life annuities at prices much below their value, the loss in eleven years having been two millions sterling. His report was not printed till 1824, when he was directed to make further investigations into the true laws of mortality prevailing in England. The result of his studies was the discovery that the average duration of human life had increased during the century. His tables were also the first which showed the difference between male and female lives.

Before the close of 1819 he furnished the chancellor of the exchequer

Chancellor of the Exchequer

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...

with a statement of the age of each individual in the receipt of naval half-pay or pensions, fourteen thousand persons, thence deducing the decrement of life among them. In 1821 Mr. Harrison employed him for several months in computations relative to the Superannuation Act

Queen Anne's Bounty

Queen Anne's Bounty was a fund established in 1704 to augment the incomes of the poorer clergy of the Church of England. The bounty was funded by the tax on the incomes of all Church of England clergy, which was paid to the Pope until the Reformation, and thereafter to the Crown.In 1890, the total...

, and in 1822 he was occupied in considerations relative to the commutation of the naval and military half-pay and pensions. The measure consequently suggested by him was finally established by negotiations with the Bank of England

Bank of England

The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...

in 1823 for its acceptance of the charge for public pensions in consideration of the ‘dead weight’ annuity. All the calculations were made by him, and it was plainly stated in the House of Commons that in the whole establishment of the Bank of England there was not one person capable of computing the new annuity at the fractional rate of interest agreed upon.

Treasury

On 1 January 1822, he was removed from the admiralty to the treasury, and appointed actuary

Actuary

and principal accountant

Accountant

An accountant is a practitioner of accountancy or accounting , which is the measurement, disclosure or provision of assurance about financial information that helps managers, investors, tax authorities and others make decisions about allocating resources.The Big Four auditors are the largest...

of the cheque

Cheque

A cheque is a document/instrument See the negotiable cow—itself a fictional story—for discussions of cheques written on unusual surfaces. that orders a payment of money from a bank account...

department of the national debt office, the duties of which position he performed for twenty-nine years. For many years after he had sought to impress on the government the loss which the country was sustaining by the use of erroneous tables, he was treated with neglect and contempt, and it was only by the accidental production of one of his letters before Lord Althorpe's committee of finance in March 1828 that the matter was brought forward. This letter proved that the revenue was losing 8,000l. a week, and that this loss was concealed by the method of preparing the yearly accounts. The immediate suspension of the life annuity

Life annuity

system took place, and, remodelled upon the basis of Finlaison's tables, it was resumed in November 1829 with a saving in five years of 390,000l.

In 1824, by the desire of the writer, the letters were burnt. Some copies of them, however, had fallen into other hands and were published in 1853 in a book entitled ‘Napoleon at St. Helena and Sir Hudson Lowe.’ Finlaison now completed a work on which he had been employed since 1812, the fund for the maintenance of the widows and orphans of all who were employed in the civil departments of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. Through Lord Melville's intervention his efforts terminated successfully in the establishment of the fund by order in council on 17 September 1819. The naval medical supplemental fund for the widows of medical officers also owed to him its existence and subsequent prosperity. Until 1829 he remained the secretary, when the directors treated him so ungenerously that he resigned, and by mismanagement this fund was ruined in 1860.

The success of these charities, together with his subsequent investigation into the condition of friendly societies, upon which he was employed by a select committee of the House of Commons in 1824, introduced him to a private practice among benefit societies; he constructed tables for many of these, furnished the scheme of some, and entirely constituted others. Among other societies with which he became connected were: the London Life, the Amicable Society, the Royal Naval and Military Life Assurance Company, and the New York Life Assurance and Trust Company. The government in 1808 instituted a new system of finance based upon the granting of life annuities, the tables used being the Northampton tables of mortality.

In 1831, his wife of almost 26 years, Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. James Glen, died at Brighton

Brighton

Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...

. In 1831 he also made computations on the duration of slave and creole life, preliminary to the compensation made to the slaveowners on 1 August 1834. He was consulted by the ecclesiastical commissioners on the means of improving church property, on the question of church leases, and finally on the subject of church rates; he made various reports on these matters, and on one occasion was summoned to attend the cabinet to explain his views to the ministers.

On the passing of the General Registration Act in 1837, his opinion was taken on the details of the working of the scheme, and he was the first witness called before the parliamentary committee on church leases in the following year. In 1840, John's Grandson Alexander John Finlaison (1840–1900) was born.

The Institute of Actuaries

The first professional body representing actuaries, the Institute of Actuaries

Institute of Actuaries

, was formed in 1848. John Finlaison was elected as the first president of the Institute of Actuaries on 14 October 1848 and retained that position until his death 12 years later.

On 29 January 1849, John gave the first inaugural presidential address to the Institute members at the first ordinary general meeting of the Institute of Actuaries.

Alexander John Finlaison, John's grandson, became a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and was the Institute's president between 1894-1896.

Last Years

In 1851, John Finlaison married for a second time to Elizabeth Davies (1807–1896), daughter of Thomas Davies of Waltham Abbey. He occupied a country house, Alghers House, now demolished, at Loughton

Loughton

Loughton is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located between 11 and 13 miles north east of Charing Cross in London, south of the M25 and west of the M11 motorway and has boundaries with Chingford, Waltham Abbey, Theydon Bois, Chigwell and Buckhurst Hill...

, Essex, on the site of which a blue plaque

Blue plaque

A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....

has been placed by the Town Council and Institute of Actuaries.

He retired from the public service in August 1851, after serving nearly fifty years in the government service and employed his remaining days as Institute president and studying his favourite topics of scripture chronology and the universal relationship of ancient and modern weights and measures.

He was unexpectedly seized with congestion of the lungs

Pulmonary edema

Pulmonary edema , or oedema , is fluid accumulation in the air spaces and parenchyma of the lungs. It leads to impaired gas exchange and may cause respiratory failure...

, and in the 77th year of his age after a brief illness, died at his residence in Notting Hill

Notting Hill

Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...

, London, on 13 April 1860, John is buried in St Nicholas’ Church, Loughton

Loughton

. John Finlaison will always be remembered for his extraordinary abilities and John has pioneered the way forward for what has become known as the actuarial profession in the UK.

Publications and reports

Report of the Secretary to the Supplemental Fund for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans of the Medical Officers of the Royal Navy, 1817.
Life annuities: Report of John Finlaison, Actuary of the National Debt, on the evidence and elementary facts on which the tables of life annuities are founded, etc. - London, 1829. - 69p. - (HC 122); Report from the Select Committee on life annuities (HC 284).
Tables for shewing the amount of contribution for providing relief in sickness and old age, for payments at death, and endowments for children. Computed by John Finlaison, and recommended by J.T. Pratt. - London, 1833.
John Tidd Pratt, John Finlaison and Griffith Davies. 'Instructions for the establishment of friendly societies with a form of rules and table applicable thereto'. 1835. - 32p.
Northampton Equitable Friendly Institution. 'Rules of the Northampton Equitable Friendly Institution'; with tables calculated by ... J.T. Beecher and J. Finlaison, etc. 1837.
Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Memorandum (second memorandum) from the Actuary of the National Debt [i.e. John Finlaison] ... on the subject of ecclesiastical leases. 1837.
Account of some Applications of the Electric Fluid to the Useful Arts by A. Bain, with a Vindication of his Claim to be the First Inventor of the Electro-Magnetic Printing Telegraph, and also of the Electro-Magnetic Clock, 1843.
Annuity tables based on data of about 1839-1843 [manuscript by John Finlaison]. : 8 vols.
Tables for the use of Friendly Societies, for the Certificate of the Actuary to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Constructed from the original computations of J. Finlaison, by A. G. Finlaison, 1847.
John Finlaison has also produced some lyrical poems of considerable merit.

External links

Institute of Actuaries Website

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