Thomas Rowe Edmonds
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Thomas Rowe Edmonds (1803–1889) was an English actuary and political economist.


Life

He was born in
Penzance Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situ ...
in Cornwall on 20 June 1803, the son of Richard Edmonds who was town clerk of
Marazion Marazion (; kw, Marhasyow) is a civil parish and town, on the shore of Mount's Bay in Cornwall, UK. It is east of Penzance and the tidal island of St Michael's Mount is half-a-mile offshore. At low water a causeway links it to the town ...
, and his wife Elizabeth.
Richard Edmonds Richard Charles Edmonds (10 March 1943 – 23 December 2020) was an English politician. He was the deputy chairman and national organiser of the British National Party (BNP) and also prominent in the National Front (NF) during two spells of ...
was a younger brother. Edmonds attended
Penzance Grammar School Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situ ...
under George Morris. He then entered
Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
as a
sizar At Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Cambridge, a sizar is an undergraduate who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in return for doing a defined j ...
in 1822, graduating B.A. in 1826. He worked as an actuary for the
Legal and General Life Assurance Society Legal & General Group plc, commonly known as Legal & General, is a British multinational financial services and asset management company headquartered in London, England. Its products and services include investment management, lifetime mortga ...
from 1832 to 1866. Edmonds died in
Maida Vale Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district consisting of the northern part of Paddington in West London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is also the name of its main road, on the continuous Edgware Road. Maida Vale is ...
on 6 March 1889.


Actuary and statistician

Edmonds applied the method of
Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin ( Sunne parish, Jämtlands län 11 September 1717 ( OS) – Stockholm 13 December 1783), Swedish astronomer and demographer. Wargentin was the son of the vicar of Sunne Wilhelm Wargentin (1670–1735) and his spouse ...
for
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 to England, as
Joshua Milne Joshua Milne (1776–1851), was an English actuary. Life He was appointed actuary to the Sun Life Assurance Society on 15 June 1810, and reconstructed the life tables then in use. He gave evidence before the select committee on the laws respecti ...
had done with data from
Carlisle, Cumberland Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers Eden, Caldew and Petteril. It is the administrative centre of the City o ...
. He became a fellow of the
Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...
in 1836. Edmonds wrote a series of 15 papers in ''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...
'', from 1836 to 1842, on the topic of mortality and health, the first being "On the laws of collective vitality". It was to be a major influence in the field of
epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evide ...
, as developed by
William Farr William Farr CB (30 November 1807 – 14 April 1883) was a British epidemiologist, regarded as one of the founders of medical statistics. Early life William Farr was born in Kenley, Shropshire, to poor parents. He was effectively adopted by ...
. While Edmonds and Farr both did pioneer work on vital statistics, the starting point for Edmonds was the needs of
life insurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...
. For Farr, there were applications to
mortality Mortality is the state of being mortal, or susceptible to death; the opposite of immortality. Mortality may also refer to: * Fish mortality, a parameter used in fisheries population dynamics to account for the loss of fish in a fish stock throug ...
and
morbidity A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that ...
. It was from the first paper of the ''Lancet'' series that Farr acquired a number of central points that Edmonds was making, in particular about collection of data. Edmonds took to campaigning journalism. In ''The Lancet'', and other periodicals edited by Farr and Thomas Wakley, he wrote polemically, in particular against the officials John Rickman and
John Finlaison John Finlaison (1783–1860) was a Scottish civil servant, government actuary and the first president of the Institute of Actuaries. John was born under the name Finlayson, however, was better known under the name of Finlaison. Early life J ...
. Two committees of the Statistical Society involved Edmonds. In 1838 he was the leader of a group of six fellows asking for a committee to work on vital statistics. The plan was to circulate insurance offices with a request for information. The matter was taken up by
Benjamin Gompertz Benjamin Gompertz (5 March 1779 – 14 July 1865) was a British self-educated mathematician and actuary, who became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Gompertz is now best known for his Gompertz law of mortality, a demographic model published in 18 ...
in correspondence with
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 ...
. In the end an external group of actuaries was consulted. In 1841 Farr pressed for a committee to collect vital statistics from patients at London hospitals. A distinguished group came together, and two reports were produced. In 1852 Edmonds gave evidence to a House of Commons committee on income and property tax. The following year he gave evidence to a committee chaired by
James Wilson James Wilson may refer to: Politicians and government officials Canada * James Wilson (Upper Canada politician) (1770–1847), English-born farmer and political figure in Upper Canada *James Crocket Wilson (1841–1899), Canadian MP from Quebe ...
, on the Legal and General's business practices, and assurance associations in general.


Socialist

Edmonds is considered a
Ricardian socialist Ricardian socialism is a branch of classical economic thought based upon the work of the economist David Ricardo (1772–1823). The term is used to describe economists in the 1820s and 1830s who developed a theory of capitalist exploitation from ...
, though this is disputed by Thompson, and an
Owenite Owenism is the utopian socialist philosophy of 19th-century social reformer Robert Owen and his followers and successors, who are known as Owenites. Owenism aimed for radical reform of society and is considered a forerunner of the cooperative mo ...
. He has also been called a "co-operative socialist". He anticipated
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
in a theory of
surplus labour Surplus labour (German: ''Mehrarbeit'') is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It means labour performed in excess of the labour necessary to produce the means of livelihood of the worker ("necessary labour"). The "s ...
and wages, and in postulating the replacement of capitalism by a later stage, which he called the "social system".


Works

Edmonds wrote three books in the period 1828 to 1832.


''Practical Moral and Political Economy'' (1828)

This work is considered, by J. W. Burrow, to contain evolutionary ideas,
Lamarckian Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...
and in the style of
Erasmus Darwin Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave-trade abolitionist, inventor, and poet. His poem ...
, and to anticipate
Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest ...
in introducing such ideas into social thought. On the other hand, Edmonds was a
polygenist Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no ...
believing in immutable human species, and no
social Darwinist Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in W ...
. His analysis of
pauperism Pauperism (Lat. ''pauper'', poor) is poverty or generally the state of being poor, or particularly the condition of being a "pauper", i.e. receiving relief administered under the English Poor Laws. From this, pauperism can also be more generally ...
was inconsistent, but he could attribute it to the effects of private property.
F. J. C. Hearnshaw Fossey John Cobb (F. J. C.) Hearnshaw (31 July 1869 in Birmingham – 10 March 1946) was an English professor of history, specializing in medieval history. He was noted for his conservative interpretation of the past, showing an empire-oriented ...
considered that the book foreshadowed
Walter Bagehot Walter Bagehot ( ; 3 February 1826 – 24 March 1877) was an English journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race. He is known for co-founding the ''National Review'' in 1855 ...
's ''Physics and Politics''.


''Life Tables'' (1832)

In ''Life Tables, founded upon the discovery of a numerical law regulating the existence of every human being'' (1832), Edmonds claimed as a new discovery on the
mortality rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of d ...
a model on ageing and mortality found in the 1820s by
Benjamin Gompertz Benjamin Gompertz (5 March 1779 – 14 July 1865) was a British self-educated mathematician and actuary, who became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Gompertz is now best known for his Gompertz law of mortality, a demographic model published in 18 ...
. He promoted its application to case fatality risk, to medical professionals. He also remarked on many other related topics, such as maximum
birth rate The birth rate for a given period is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; populati ...
s and
gender mortality differentials In anthropology and demography, the human sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population. Like most sexual species, the sex ratio in humans is close to 1:1. In humans, the natural ratio at birth between males and females is slight ...
. In his mortality theory, Edmonds took up observations of
Richard Price Richard Price (23 February 1723 – 19 April 1791) was a British moral philosopher, Nonconformist minister and mathematician. He was also a political reformer, pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the French ...
, dividing life into three periods (childhood, "manhood" from age 12 to 55, and old age). He quantified mortality by using different
geometric progression In mathematics, a geometric progression, also known as a geometric sequence, is a sequence of non-zero numbers where each term after the first is found by multiplying the previous one by a fixed, non-zero number called the ''common ratio''. For e ...
s in each period. His table became known as "Edmonds's Mean Mortality". He persisted into the 1860s with his piecewise approach, though by then with two periods, rather than the
sigmoid curve A sigmoid function is a mathematical function having a characteristic "S"-shaped curve or sigmoid curve. A common example of a sigmoid function is the logistic function shown in the first figure and defined by the formula: :S(x) = \frac = \f ...
model of Gompertz. But Edmonds came in for some rough handling for his continuing assertions of the independence of his model from that of Gompertz. Augustus De Morgan and
Thomas Bond Sprague Thomas Bond Sprague FRSE FFA FIA LLD (29 March 1830 – 29 November 1920) was a British actuary, barrister and amateur mathematician who was the only person to have been President of both the Institute of Actuaries (1882–1886) in London ...
took him to task during the early 1860s, in the ''Journal of the Institute of Actuaries''. This controversy was later thought to have slowed acceptance of the refinement proposed by
William Makeham William Matthew Makeham (11 September 1826 – 17 November 1891) was an English people, English actuary and mathematician. Makeham was responsible for proposing the age-independent Makeham term in the Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality that, tog ...
to the Gompertz model, now the
Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality The Gompertz–Makeham law states that the human death rate is the sum of an age-dependent component (the Gompertz function, named after Benjamin Gompertz), which increases exponentially with age and an age-independent component (the Makeham te ...
.


''An Enquiry into the Principles of Population'' (1832)

''An Enquiry into the Principles of Population, Exhibiting a System of Regulations for the Poor'' (1832) was anonymous at its publication.
Garrett Hardin Garrett James Hardin (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was an American ecologist. He focused his career on the issue of human overpopulation, and is best known for his exposition of the tragedy of the commons in a 1968 paper of the same t ...
regarded this book as the first important population theory opposed to that of
Robert Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Malt ...
. It contains an analysis of
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accom ...
, as caused by export of food, with remarks on the Irish situation. In arguing against Malthus, Edmonds (in common with
Richard Jones Richard Jones may refer to: Arts and entertainment *F. Richard Jones (1893–1930), American filmmaker *Dick Clair (Richard Jones, 1931–1988), American producer, actor and TV writer *Richard Jones (The Feeling), British bass guitarist *Richard J ...
,
Augustus Henry Moreton Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Principate ...
and George Rickards) laid weight on factors that could cause postponement of marriage. In general he relied on "non-moral" effects, and Chapter VIII of the book addressed the possible effects on labourers' fertility of
upward mobility Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given societ ...
. Edmonds attributed some contemporary social problems to the small extent of the middle class. He rejected "Sadler's law" put forth by
Michael Thomas Sadler Michael Thomas Sadler (3 January 1780 – 29 July 1835) was a British Tory Member of Parliament (MP) whose Evangelical Anglicanism and prior experience as a Poor Law administrator in Leeds led him to oppose Malthusian theories of population and ...
two years earlier, to the effect that higher population density led to lower fertility, on the basis of empirical work in some urban areas. Later research by David Heron confirmed Edmonds's findings, which left open the question of urban versus rural fertility.Eversley, pp. 43–4.


Family

Edmonds married Elizabeth Elspith Ruddack in 1833. They had a son, Frederic Bernard.


References

* *Michael Perelman, ''Edmonds, Ricardo, and What Might Have Been'', Science & Society Vol. 44, No. 1 (Spring, 1980), pp. 82–85. Published by: Guilford Press. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40402220


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edmonds, Thomas Rowe 1803 births 1889 deaths British actuaries British statisticians British epidemiologists Lamarckism Proto-evolutionary biologists 19th-century British businesspeople Owenites