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MORGAN, WILLIAM (1750 - 1833), actuary

Name: William Morgan
Date of birth: 1750
Date of death: 1833
Spouse: Susannah Morgan (née Woodhouse)
Child: Sarah Morgan
Child: Susannah Morgan
Child: Cadogan Morgan
Child: John Morgan
Child: William Morgan
Child: Arthur Morgan
Parent: Sarah Morgan (née Price)
Parent: William Morgan
Gender: Male
Occupation: actuary
Area of activity: Economics and Money
Authors: Robert Thomas Jenkins, Llewelyn Gwyn Chambers

Born 26 May 1750 at Bridgend, Glamorganshire, brother of George Cadogan Morgan and nephew of the philosopher Richard Price. He was apprenticed to two apothecaries in London, and was a student at St. Thomas' Hospital. He returned to Bridgend in 1772 to take up his father's practice after his death. He went to London in 1773 where he may have kept a school for a while. In 17 April 1774 Price got him a place in the Equitable Assurance Society, where his progress was so rapid that from 1775 till his retirement in 1830 he was its chief actuary.

He valued the Equitable in 1775, the first office to be valued, and the Equitable in 1800 was the first office ever to add a bonus on payment made on a policy. In addition to his work with the Equitable he advised the Scottish Widows office when it was set up. It is likely that he was the first to produce X-rays when he passed electricity through an almost airless tube.

Like his uncle, he was a strong Radical, and his house on Stamford Hill was the resort of men like Horne Tooke and Tom Paine and Francis Burdett. He died 4 May 1833, and was buried at Hornsey.

Morgan is regarded as one of the pioneers of scientific life-insurance. He published tables and important articles on the principles of life-insurance, and it was on his tables that another Welsh actuary, Griffith Davies founded his own. Morgan received the gold medal of the Royal Society in 1783, and was F.R.S. Like his uncle, he strongly opposed the swelling of the national debt, and he published six pamphlets on that matter. He edited Richard Price's works, with a biography.

His son Arthur was an actuary at the Equitable from 1830 to 1870 and was an F.R.S. Another son, William, who died young was an assistant actuary briefly and a grandson, William, was an assistant actuary from 1870 to 1892.

Authors

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/

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