Joshua Milne (1776–1851), was an English

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

He was appointed actuary to the Sun Life Assurance Society on 15 June 1810, and reconstructed the

life table In actuarial science and demography, a life table (also called a mortality table or actuarial table) is a table which shows, for each age, what the probability is that a person of that age will die before their next birthday ("probability of deat ...

s then in use. He gave evidence before the select committee on the laws respecting friendly societies (1825 and 1827). By 1839 Milne had lost interest in the values of life contingencies, and turned to natural history; he is said to have possessed one of the best botanical libraries in London. He resigned his position in the Sun Life Office on 19 December 1843, and died at

Upper Clapton Clapton is a district of East London, England, in the London Borough of Hackney. Clapton is divided into Upper Clapton, in the north, and Lower Clapton to the south. Clapton railway station lies north-east of Charing Cross. Geography and origi ...

on 4 January 1851. He was buried on the western side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

Actuarial works

When Milne entered the field, life tables were based on the data taken by Richard Price from the burial registers (1735–80) of All Saints' Church, Northampton. Milne took as the basis of his calculations the bills of mortality from

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...

, which had been prepared by

John Heysham John Heysham M.D. (1753–1834) was an English physician, now remembered as a statistician. Life Born at Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster on 22 November 1753, he was the son of John Heysham, shipowner, by Anne Cumming, the daughter of a Westmor ...

. After a long correspondence (12 September 1812 – 14 June 1814) with Heysham, he published his major work ''A Treatise on the Valuation of Annuities and Assurances'' (1815). Milne's new "Carlisle table" marked an epoch in actuarial science. Considering the narrow base of data from which he had to work, it was quite accurate, and was widely adopted by insurance societies. The Carlisle Table was largely superseded by that published by the Institute of Actuaries in 1870. But it was still considered useful in the early 20th century. Subsequent writers built on Milne's work. He was the first to compute accurately, at the cost of heavy algebra, the value of fines (i.e. payments to be made at the successive deaths of persons). His notation for the expression of life contingencies suggested that of Augustus De Morgan in his ''Essay on Probabilities''. Milne also contributed to the '' Encyclopædia Britannica, fourth edition'', articles on "Annuities", "Bills of Mortality", and "Law of Mortality".The last was reprinted in 1827 (''Report from the Select Committee on the Laws respecting Friendly Societies'', 1827, App. G 3), together with a statement on the Carlisle and Northampton tables of mortality (App. B).

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Milne, Joshua 1776 births 1851 deaths Burials at Highgate Cemetery 19th-century English mathematicians British actuaries