John Finlaison FIA (1783-1860)

John Finlaison was the first President of the Institute of Actuaries serving from 1848 until his death in 1860. His reputation is as the first actuary in government widely consulted for his trusted revision of mortality calculations behind Treasury annuity sale schemes and for his valuations of benefit funds in the best interests of members.

Yet his career shows standards he set in other technical disciplines that now enjoy separate status as professional skills. In an age of the Napoleonic wars his work highlighted the great advantage of full accessible information to naval strategy and the value of firm financial assumptions upon which to raise government revenue. His publications are less contributions to actuarial theory than comprehensive reports stressing the importance of correct data which must be properly categorised to avoid costly financial losses.

• Life of John Finlaison 1783-1860
• Reports and Writings by John Finlaison
• Biographical articles on John Finlaison
• Quotations of John Finlaison

Following brief studies for the Scottish Bar, his first job was for the Naval Commission, London, where his indexing and organisation of papers won respect long before library and records management professions were established. Following valuation work for a fund for widows of Navy medical officers, he then served for nearly thirty years as Actuary of the National Debt in the Treasury - forerunner to the position of Government Actuary officially created later in 1917.

He was not involved in early gatherings of life office managers who favoured an association to train future generations of actuaries and promote their value to the insurance industry, policyholders and society at large. Yet when Guardian Actuary Griffith Davies, active sponsor and expected leader of the new body, had to withdraw owing to ill health, John Finlaison was clear choice to be the first President of the new Institute of Actuaries. He used his position in 1853 to argue before a Commons Select Committee that the trusted skill of actuaries was imperative to life company solvency and a statutory role was recommended.

As well as his high threshold for producing detailed actuarial expositions in support of prudent public finance, he was not averse to risk in personal capital ventures. In 1843 he risked his fortune supporting Alexander Bain in his experiments towards the first telegraph line and electrical clock.

This biographical summary draws upon the researches John Gunlake FIA whose biography of John Finlaison is fully drafted but incomplete. The Library would very much welcome interested authors to review and complete it!

Life of John Finlaison

Reports and writings by John Finlaison

Report of the Secretary [John Finlaison] to the Supplemental Fund for the relief of the widows, and orphans of the medical officers of the Royal Navy. 1817.

Life annuities: Report of John Finlaison, Actuary of the National Debt, on the evidence and elementary facts on which the tables of life annuities are founded, etc. - London, 1829. - 69p. - (HC 122); Report from the Select Committee on life annuities (HC 284).

Tables for shewing the amount of contribution for providing relief in sickness and old age, for payments at death, and endowments for children. Computed by John Finlaison, and recommended by J.T. Pratt. - London, 1833.

John Tidd Pratt, John Finlaison and Griffith Davies. Instructions for the establishment of friendly societies with a form of rules and table applicable thereto. 1835. - 32p.

Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Memorandum (second memorandum) from the Actuary of the National Debt [i.e. John Finlaison] ... on the subject of ecclesiastical leases. 1837.

Northampton Equitable Friendly Institution. Rules of the Northampton Equitable Friendly Institution; with tables calculated by ... J.T. Beecher and J. Finlaison, etc. 1837.

Annuity tables based on data of about 1839-1843 [manuscript by John Finlaison]. : 8 vols.

An account of some remarkable applications of the electric fluid to the useful arts by Mr Alexander Bain with a vindication of his claim to be the first inventor of the electro-magnetic printing telegraph and also of the electro-magnetic clock. 1843. Alexander Glen Finlaison and John Finlaison. Tables for the use of friendly societies, for the Certificate of the Actuary to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. (Constructed ... from the original computations of the John Finlaison ... by A.G Finlaison. Tables computed by G. Davies etc.). 1847.

[Inaugural address as President at the first ordinary general meeting of the Institute of Actuaries on 29 January 1849]. The Post Magazine 10 (450) 17 February 1849.

Biographical articles on John Finlaison

[Notice of death of John Finlaison]. The Times 17 April 1860, p. 9.

'The late Mr Finlaison' (obituary). The Times 23 April 1860, p. 9

‘John Finlaison, Esq.' (obituary) The Gentleman’s Magazine August 1860, pp. 194-195

'Appendix to Chronicle. Deaths - April 13’. [John Finlaison]. Annual Register, 1860 (1861)

James Traill Calder (1861). ‘John Finlaison, late Actuary of the National Debt, and government calculator’, Sketch of the civil and traditional history of Caithness from the 10th century. 1st ed. (1861). pp. 260-266

‘Memoir of the late John Finlaison, Esq., Actuary of the National Debt, and government calculator, and President of the Insitute of Actuaries’, Assurance Magazine and Journal of the Institute of Actuaries 10 April 1862, pp. 147-169

Memoir of the public services of the late John Finlaison, Esq., Actuary of the National Debt, and government calculator, and President of the Insitute of Actuaries. 1862.

Cornelius Walford (1874). ‘Finlaison, John’, The insurance cyclopædia [...], vol. 3, pp. 300-303

G.C.B (1889). ‘John Finlaison’, The Dictionary of National Biography vol. 5, pp. 27-29

John Mowat (1904). ‘John Finlaison: a famous Caithness arithmetician’. Northern Ensign 5 April 1904. [Manuscript magazine of the Glasgow Caithness Literary Association].

Frederic Boase. ‘Finlaison, John’. Modern English biography, containing memoirs of persons who have died since 1850 (during the years 1851-1900), with an index of the most interesting matter (1892-1921) vol. 1, p. 1047

John Henry Gunlake (ca. 1990). [Biography of John Finlaison 1783-1860: typescript and notes, unfinished - last completed chapter 15: 1841-1843).] .

Robert P. Gunn (1991). ‘John Finlaison’, Tales from Braemore: a collection of Caithness folklore and history 1991.

Angela Finlaison (1997). ‘Four Finlaysons who went far from Thurso fisher families’. Journal of the Highland Family History Society. August 1997.

Trevor A Sibbett (1999). 'John Finlaison'. Entry in new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Quotations of John Finlaison

"The purpose of any system of reference must be to supersede the use of individual memory - to instantly invest a new Board.. with the very same facilities for the despatch of business which had previously been at the command of their predecessors." - (John Finlaison on records management, 1809)

"The philosopher, stored with book knowledge and familiar with all the discoveries of previous and contemporary sages, is unable to work out a single idea, or to produce the most trifling invention; while the self-taught mechanic, by the strength of his own untutored genius, and unacquainted with any of those facts which the pioneers in science had made plain for their successors, produces, nevertheless, inventions and combinations, replete with harmony and beauty, which carry us far onward towards the practical application, to purposes of general utility..."
- (John Finlaison, 1843)

"Courtesy and mutual kindness are ... indispensible to our permanence. But quite consistent with these is the dissemination of truth." - (Institute President’s Speech, 29 January 1849)