George Barrett (1752–1821) was a British
actuary
An actuary is a business professional 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 man ...
.
Life
Barrett was the son of a farmer of Wheeler Street, a small hamlet in Surrey. At an early age, although engaged in daily labour, he made, unaided, considerable progress in mathematics, taking special interest in the class of problems connected with the duration of human life.
He afterwards, during a period of twenty-five years (1786–1811), laboured assiduously at his great series of life assurance and annuity tables, working all the while, first as a schoolmaster, afterwards as a land steward, for the maintenance of younger relatives, to whose support he devoted a great part of his earnings.
In 1813, he became actuary to the Hope Life Office, but retained that appointment for little more than two years. In the worldly sense his life was all failure. At the age of sixty-four he retired, broken in health and worn in spirit, to pass his remaining days with his sisters, at whose house in Godalming he died in 1821.
Works
His comprehensive series of life tables, and the ingenious and fertile method, known as the columnar method, which he had devised for their construction, won the ardent approval of
Francis Baily
Francis Baily (28 April 177430 August 1844) was an English astronomer. He is most famous for his observations of "Baily's beads" during a total eclipse of the Sun. Baily was also a major figure in the early history of the Royal Astronomical S ...
, who made earnest but vain efforts to get them published by subscription, and afterwards, in 1812, read a paper upon them before the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
; but that body, for reasons unexplained, refused to order the memoir to be printed. It was then published as an appendix to the edition of 1813 of Baily's work on ''Annuities.'' There has been some controversy as to the originality of Barrett's method. His claims have been ably vindicated by
Augustus De Morgan;
[ ''Assurance Magazine'', iv. 185, xii. 348] more details of this interesting question, and exposition of Barrett's method and the important advances subsequently made upon it by
Griffith Davies and others are to be found in the references.
Some time after Barrett's death most of his papers were destroyed by fire. The tables were purchased by
Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.
Babbage is considered ...
, who made use of them in his ''Comparative View''. With that exception, and that of the specimens in Baily's appendix, they were never printed.
Barrett also published, in 1786, an "Essay towards a System of Police," in which he recommends one more patriarchal, than that of Russia or the Caliph
Haroun al Raschid according to Clerke.
Notes
References
;Attribution
* Endnotes:
**Baily's ''Doctrine of
Life Annuities'', 1813, appendix
**same work, ed. 1864, editor's preface and sect. 37 seqq.
**''
Assurance Magazine'', i. 1, iv. 185, xii. 348
**Babbage's ''
Comparative View of
Assurance Institutions'', 1826
**''Walford's Insurance Cyclopædia'', art. "Columnar Method."
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barrett, George
1752 births
1821 deaths
British actuaries
People from Surrey (before 1889)