Notes on Widows' Funds

Extract

Gentlemen,—I have to express my most sincere and cordial thanks to you for the honour which you have conferred upon me, by having for the third time elected me as President of the Actuarial Society.

I have been a member of the Society almost from its commencement; and before the date of my becoming a member, I was permitted, as a young student, to attend some of the meetings. Thus it happened that I was present at the first meeting, and had the privilege of hearing the first inaugural address, delivered by the first President, the late Mr. William Thomas Thomson, a gentleman who was practically the Founder of this Society and also of the Faculty of Actuaries, and to whom both Societies are under very great obligations.

When recalling what took place in the first session of the Society, I may be permitted to refer to three notable papers by Mr. James Meikle, which I also had the privilege of hearing read, on the Nature, Calculation, and Sufficiency of the Premium required for Assurance of a Sum at Death, afterwards published under the title of “The Rationale of Life Assurance Premiums.” The author of these early papers has frequently filled the Presidential Chair, and has been extremely helpful to this Society throughout its whole existence; but if (instead of being the most extensive contributor to the Transactions of the Society) he had done nothing beyond giving us these papers, he would nevertheless have placed the Society deeply in his debt.