Special books collection

Institute of Actuaries Library (Staple Inn)
Staple Inn Hall, High Holborn, London WC1V 7QJ
Tel. + 44 (0)20 7632 2114 Fax. + 44 (0)20 7632 2111
email: libraries@actuaries.org.uk

The collection is open for public researchers by appointment. A catalogue of books published before 1901 is available as a pdf document.

In January 1990 modern books and periodicals moved with the Actuarial Education Service (now IFE Ltd.) to Napier House, Oxford, where they form a teaching and research library. Most pre-1960 publications, including the special collection of books and manuscripts, remain housed at Staple Inn Library along with overseas actuarial journals, current periodicals serving the industries in which actuaries practise, reference books and directories and course tuition materials

The Library dates from the foundation of the Institute in 1848 and from 1886 it was housed in the Hall of Staple Inn, formerly an Inn of Chancery. In 1944 a bomb destroyed the Hall, books were evacuated but the Library returned to Staple Inn when the Hall was rebuilt in 1955. The Library is now located in the basement.

The collections

R.C. Simmonds, The Institute of Actuaries 1848-1948 (Cambridge UP) is an account of the Institute's first hundred years and the development of the Library (p. 277-287).

The historical books collection contains some 3000 books on actuarial science and its applications, demography, economics, insurance, mathematics, probability and statistics. There are over 1000 books and pamphlets dating before 1901 and those published before 1851 are in separate safe storage.

Most rare books derive from donations, including the gift in 1849 of part of the library of Edwin James Farren, Actuary of the Asylum Life Office, and many donations from Augustus De Morgan (1806-1871). The Institute began buying books at the outset and from 1865 to 1974 with a fund in memory of Peter Hardy F.R.S. (1813-1863) whose own library passed to his son R. P. Hardy, also an actuary. The latter in turn offered a few rare books to the Institute Library. Dispersals from the library have taken place between 1880 and 1940 (saving them from war damage) but the library retains many manuscripts and proof copies for which it had gained renown.

The first printed catalogues were included in the Institute Constitution and List of Members of 1849-50, 1851 and 1852 and subsequently in the full published Catalogue of the Library of the Institute of Actuaries of 1880 (Author and classified subject index), 1894, 1907 and 1935. Additions to the Library were announced annually in the Journal of the Institute of Actuaries from 1908 to 1989.

The Library database catalogue has records for all its special collection books, manuscripts and pamphlets held at Staple Inn. The Institute Library continues to acquire early works on compound interest, demography, life insurance and probability which pioneered actuarial science and were applied by the first professional actuaries. In this activity it is fortunate to benefit from the guidance of Institute members who have expert knowledge of the antecedents to actuarial practice. The Faculty of Actuaries also has a complementary collection of rare books in this field. The libraries still add significant social and company histories which cite early authors on actuarial themes and which provide important context. Both libraries welcome researchers to view such texts by appointment.

As the Libraries bring together a final selection of actuarial literature, a printed joint catalogue listing is in progress. This will demonstrate the value of the collection as a resource not just for actuarial research but also supporting study on early mathematics and probability, the development of financial services, impact of insurance and pensions in society, and observation of wages and prices over long periods.

Highlights from the Special Collections

Manuscripts
Original tables calculated by (Institute) actuaries investigating company mortality data; Frederick Hendriks Research notes relating to the discovery in 1851 of Johan De Witt's treatise on life annuities, 1671 contains autograph letters with European politicians and documents, translations from the Dutch, portraits and plates and led to his articles 'Contributions to the history of insurance, and the theory of life contingencies', Journal of the Institute of Actuaries I and II (1851, 1852).

Mathematics
Including probability, logarithm tables, etc.; mainly of the 18th and 19th centuries. These include some of the rarest books in the Library and items cited in Short Title Catalogue bibliographies: Ian Trenchant, L'Arithmetique (1558); Ludolph Van Ceulen, Van den Circkel (1596) on compound interest; Nicolas Struyck, Uytreekening der kanssen in het speelen, door de arithmetica en algebra, beneevens een vehandeling van looteryen en interest... [1716]; Charles Babbage, Specimen of logarithm tables printed with different coloured inks on variously coloured papers (1831) has a manuscript note 'only 1 copy having been printed' and a letter presentation to W. Streatfield; and works by Abraham De Moivre such as The Doctrine of chances (1756).

Mortality statistics
The collection includes: Company of Parish Clerks of London, London's dreadful visitation. Or, A Collection of all the Bills of Mortality for the present year... (1665) at the time of the Great Plague; classics such as John Graunt, Natural and political observations [...] made upon the Bills of Mortality (1662) and Thomas Short, New observations, natural, moral, civil, political and medical on city, town and country bills of mortality (1750).

Theory of life assurance and annuities
Many works of the 18th and 19th centuries e.g. Abraham De Moivre, Annuities upon lives (1725) - arguably the first book on actuarial science; Richard Price, Observations on reversionary payments, 1st ed. (1771) and later editions; Charles Babbage, A comparative view of the various institutions for the assurance of lives (1826).

Insurance prospectuses and promotional leaflets.
This collection is said to have started with the gift from the Clerical, Medical and General Assurance Society of a bound volume of various companies' prospectuses (with reports to policyholders and specimen policy conditions) trawled from the period 1832-1851. Another set is in three volumes bound by the Colonial Life Assurance Company in 1846 covering English, Irish, Scottish and foreign offices. Also, there is a volume of statutes of French and German insurance companies of the 1850s.

Pamphlets have been bound in a series of 'Tracts' covering mainly 19th-century life assurance, statistics, friendly societies, mortality rates with some Dutch, French and German insurance literature. They include a collection bought in 1880 from Cornelius Walford (1827-1885), author of The Insurance Cyclopaedia ... (volumes 1-V: Aba - Han) (1871-1880). Some 'Tracts' pamphlets listed in 1907 have been later disbound but all are traceable using the Library database catalogue.

Newmarch collection
The Royal Statistical Society has deposited six volumes of pamphlets - mainly on life assurance bequeathed by William Newmarch F.R.S.S. (1820-1882), Manager of Glyn Mills and Company Bank - with the Institute Library upon permanent loan.

Serials
Staple Inn Library holds several current journals of American and European actuarial associations. Its historical holdings include Post Magazine (weekly news on the insurance industry) from 1849 onwards and Transactions of the International Congress of Actuaries from 1895.

Equitable Life archive

Archive of the Actuarial Profession

Since it began with the foundation of the Institute of Actuaries in 1848 (Royal Charter, 1884) and Faculty of Actuaries in 1856 (Royal Charter, 1868) the British actuarial profession has fostered production of education textbooks for student actuaries and technical papers dedicated to its subject field through the Journal of the Institute of Actuaries (1951-1994) and Transactions of the Faculty of Actuaries (1901-1997) - now the British Actuarial Journal since 1995. The achievements of leading figures and professional committees in contributing to legislation with appropriate public interest roles for actuaries can be traced through the respective Yearbooks and Members Handbooks of the two organisations. The Libraries also maintain albums of photographs of actuaries since 1848 with their insurance company associations.