MacTutor
BENJAMIN GOMPERTZ, a member of the Jewish community, was descended from a family that long held a distinguished position in Holland. His grandfather on the mother's side, Benjamin Cohen by name, was on intimate terms with William Prince of Orange; and it is related that during the troubled times of the first French Revolution the Dutch Stadtholder found a ready asylum at the magnificent mansion erected by his friend at Amersfort. Benjamin Cohen was a man of intellectual tastes, evinced, among other ways, by his causing a translation of Euclid into Hebrew to be made for his use. The father of Benjamin Gompertz was a successful diamond-merchant, a pursuit for which the Dutch appear to possess a singular aptitude even to the present day. The literary tastes of the grandfather descended to the grandchildren, and all the brothers of Benjamin Gompertz became, like himself, men of mark in their generation. His brother Isaac wrote poems, possessing a merit sufficient to attract the approbation of Byron. Ephraim Gompertz, still living, is known among a large circle of acquaintance to be an accomplished and original mathematician. Lewis Gompertz, the youngest brother, was the founder of the "Animals' Friend Society," and he entertained and published many a strange speculation on the relation of the brute creation to man.
Benjamin Gompertz, the subject of this notice, was born on the 5th of March, 1779, at Bury Street in the City of London. He did not enjoy the advantage of a collegiate education, but upon the whole must be considered as a self-taught man, and to this circumstance, perhaps, may be attributed some of the originality of pursuit and of conception for which he was remarkable. He became familiar with the writings of the French mathematicians of the last century, but his favourite authors were Emerson and Maclaurin, and beyond all others Newton. So great an admirer was he of the latter immortal philosopher, that to the last he retained his predilection for the "Fluxional Calculus," not only with respect to the spirit of its conception, but even for the symbols of its notation. The form of his mind seems to have been eminently truthful, and hence, one among other reasons which he assigned for his rejection of the differential notation of Leibnitz was, that it was "furtive." In this paper, Mr. Gompertz also proposes what he considered to be certain improvements in the notation of partial fluxions or differential coefficients, and in the symbols for denoting logarithms and antilogarithms; but especially one for the embodiment of zeros which may fairly be considered as a great boon. Thus, according to Mr. Gompertz, 898,000,000 or 000,000,898 may be written with great convenience 898⑥ and ⑥898 respectively.
Mr. Gompertz while still a youth, in fact as early as the year 1798, took a prominent part among the English mathematicians of the day. He was a constant contributor to the ingenious questions contained in the Gentleman's Mathematical Companion; and the extent of his analytical powers was fully proved by the fact, that although such men as Ivory, Nicholson, Griffith, Davies, and others, were constant contributors, nevertheless, from the year 1812 to 1822, and without a single exception, Benjamin Gompertz carried off the prize annually offered for the best solution of the prize question.
Young Gompertz was originally intended by his father to follow a purely mercantile profession, and with this view he made his first start in life on the Stock Exchange, and continued a member of that body almost to the time that he undertook the management of an Insurance Office.
In 1810 he married Miss Abigail Montefiore, the sister of the well-known philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore. Two daughters still survive this union. The din of Change Alley was but little congenial to the mind of Benjamin Gompertz, and, like his eminent friend Francis Baily, he was only too glad when the hour came that he could retire to the quiet of his own study, or to the instructive discussions of the various learned societies of which he became himself an active member. It was here that he rejoiced to cultivate a friendly interchange of thought with such men as Sir John Herschel, Sir James South, Mr. Babbage, Mr. De Morgan, and many other well-known names in the household of science.
The first learned society that Mr. Gompertz joined was the "Mathematical," whose members met at Crispin Street, Spitalfields. The object of this society, founded so far back as 1717, was to assist the middle classes in their cultivation of mathematical pursuits, by affording access to books on scientific subjects which at that day were accessible to the opulent alone. In the operations of this valuable society, Mr. Gompertz took a prominent part, and his great abilities and constant urbanity there, gained for him so much good will, that eventually he became President of the society, which office he retained until the members amalgamated themselves with the Royal Astronomical Society, and transferred to us their valuable collection of books and instruments.
In 1806 Mr. Gompertz contributed his first original paper of importance to the Royal Society, through Dr. Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal of that day. This memoir treats of the summation of certain series by the method of differences, which theretofore had been summed by Landen through the aid of imaginary quantities. It was possibly the composition of this memoir which induced Mr. Gompertz to direct his attention to the interpretation and calculus of imaginary symbols, which soon occupied his thoughts for a considerable period. The results of these speculations he published in a series of tracts at his own expense, and next to his mathematical expression for the law of mortality, he even considered them as the most successful of his essays. I
n 1819 Mr. Gompertz was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and for forty-six years he continued an active member of that illustrious body, and occasionally served as a member of its Council.
In the year 1820 occurs the foundation of our own Society, and if Mr. Gompertz cannot be with strictness considered as one of its actual founders, it is certain that he became one of its warmest and most active supporters from the day of its foundation. On Feb. 9, 1821, he was elected on the Council, and of it he continued a most valuable member for nearly ten years. Many of the most valuable contributions to the Memoirs of our Society were committed to his care, and not a few thus entrusted to him were elucidated and rendered more complete by his explanatory notes. Instances of this will be found in Littrow's paper "On the Transit Instruments," (Astron. Trans. vol. i. p. 275), and in Kreil's paper "On the Equatorial," vol. iv. p. 501.
The first contribution made by Mr. Gompertz to our Memoirs was in 1822, on the subject of "The Aberration of Light;" and in this memoir occurs a passage which it may not be inopportune here to transcribe, not alone for the truth which it contains, but for the sake of the picture which it presents to us of the enthusiasm with which Gompertz was animated in his pursuit of science. "In the contemplation of the sciences," he says, "there is, besides the pleasure arising from the acquirement of knowledge of practical utility, a peculiar charm bestowed by the reasoning faculty itself in a well. directed pursuit of facts; and though the results deduced by the arguments are frequently considered to be the only objects of value by the unlearned, the man of absolute scientific ardour will often, while he is enraptured with the argument, have not the slightest interest for the object for which his argument was instituted." This remarkable evolution of Mr. Gompertz's mind may probably serve as the clue explaining the fact that, although he enriched the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society with many admirable contributions on the subject of the corrections of astronomical instruments, he in no other sense ever became a practical astronomer, or was much habituated to the use of the instruments, with the construction and errors of which he was thus manifestly familiar. Thus we have in the first volume of our Memoirs (Nov.) papers and a supplement on the "Theory of Astronomical Instruments." Again, in the volume for 1824, there occurs the description of a new astronomical instrument, named by the late Francis Baily "The Differential Sextant." There is also a contribution on the subject of the corrections due to errors in the knife-edges of Kater's Convertible Pendulum; but the most practically important astronomical object to which Mr. Gompertz directed his attention was that in connexion with formulæ for the reduction of the apparent places of the stars to their mean co-ordinates.
What Mr. Gompertz effected in this direction may probably be most easily understood from the following quotation of words spoken by Sir John Herschel in his well-known éloge of the late Francis Baily: "It seems almost astonishing that these computations, which lie at the root of all astronomy, and without which no result can be arrived at, and no practical observer can advance a single step, should have remained up to so late a period as the twentieth year of the nineteenth century in the loose and troublesome state which was actually the case, and that not from their theory being not understood, but from their practice not having been systematized. Messrs. Baily and Gompertz, perceiving this want, proceeded to supply it. The subject was investigated generally, and a method was devised for arranging the terms of the corrections for Aberration and Solar and Lunar Nutations. Some of the tables had already been computed, when they heard of Bessel's labours in the same field. Finding that that astronomer had proceeded on a similar principle, but that besides the other corrections he had taken in that of Precession, Messrs. Baily and Gompertz willingly gave way, and certainly nothing more perfect than the Elementa Astronomica,' by Bessel, could have been devised. However, Messrs. Baily and Gompertz were of some use. The complete Catalogue of the Royal Astronomical Society may be partly looked upon as the fruit of the united labours of these two men."
Such, then, are the labours of our late most excellent member in that field of science which we especially cultivate. With the exception, indeed, of certain investigations, unfortunately left incomplete, on meteors and shooting-stars, which occupied his attention during a part of the last years of his life, his most recent contribution to our Memoirs is dated so far back as the year 1829.
It does not seem to be the province of our Society to record, more than by way of the most general reference the labours of Mr. Gompertz in that branch of science in which, perhaps, no man has ever been more highly distinguished We allude to his admirable and most valuable contributions to the theory of Life Assurances and Contingent Reversions, which never ceased to occupy his thought during the remainder of a long and valuable life. The name of Gompertz must be fresh in the recollection of every actuary who truly studies his own profession; and it may not be too much to say that his writings will ever form one of the landmarks in a science which silently but effectually intertwines itself into the material interests of society.
It is thus that, in a brief paragraph, we simply, as members of an astronomical society, pass over a long period of activity replete with interest to other men whose tastes and pursuits are attracted or determined by the interest they take in all that concerns the statistics of human life. In other and more fitting publications they will find the records of these labours of this remarkable man. To us it must be of interest to know that, respected by those who saw him only at a distance, or through the medium of his works, and beloved by his family and those who saw him in the closer relations of life, Benjamin Gompertz, at a ripe old age, died on July 15, 1865, and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery, near Victoria Park.
Benjamin Gompertz, the subject of this notice, was born on the 5th of March, 1779, at Bury Street in the City of London. He did not enjoy the advantage of a collegiate education, but upon the whole must be considered as a self-taught man, and to this circumstance, perhaps, may be attributed some of the originality of pursuit and of conception for which he was remarkable. He became familiar with the writings of the French mathematicians of the last century, but his favourite authors were Emerson and Maclaurin, and beyond all others Newton. So great an admirer was he of the latter immortal philosopher, that to the last he retained his predilection for the "Fluxional Calculus," not only with respect to the spirit of its conception, but even for the symbols of its notation. The form of his mind seems to have been eminently truthful, and hence, one among other reasons which he assigned for his rejection of the differential notation of Leibnitz was, that it was "furtive." In this paper, Mr. Gompertz also proposes what he considered to be certain improvements in the notation of partial fluxions or differential coefficients, and in the symbols for denoting logarithms and antilogarithms; but especially one for the embodiment of zeros which may fairly be considered as a great boon. Thus, according to Mr. Gompertz, 898,000,000 or 000,000,898 may be written with great convenience 898⑥ and ⑥898 respectively.
Mr. Gompertz while still a youth, in fact as early as the year 1798, took a prominent part among the English mathematicians of the day. He was a constant contributor to the ingenious questions contained in the Gentleman's Mathematical Companion; and the extent of his analytical powers was fully proved by the fact, that although such men as Ivory, Nicholson, Griffith, Davies, and others, were constant contributors, nevertheless, from the year 1812 to 1822, and without a single exception, Benjamin Gompertz carried off the prize annually offered for the best solution of the prize question.
Young Gompertz was originally intended by his father to follow a purely mercantile profession, and with this view he made his first start in life on the Stock Exchange, and continued a member of that body almost to the time that he undertook the management of an Insurance Office.
In 1810 he married Miss Abigail Montefiore, the sister of the well-known philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore. Two daughters still survive this union. The din of Change Alley was but little congenial to the mind of Benjamin Gompertz, and, like his eminent friend Francis Baily, he was only too glad when the hour came that he could retire to the quiet of his own study, or to the instructive discussions of the various learned societies of which he became himself an active member. It was here that he rejoiced to cultivate a friendly interchange of thought with such men as Sir John Herschel, Sir James South, Mr. Babbage, Mr. De Morgan, and many other well-known names in the household of science.
The first learned society that Mr. Gompertz joined was the "Mathematical," whose members met at Crispin Street, Spitalfields. The object of this society, founded so far back as 1717, was to assist the middle classes in their cultivation of mathematical pursuits, by affording access to books on scientific subjects which at that day were accessible to the opulent alone. In the operations of this valuable society, Mr. Gompertz took a prominent part, and his great abilities and constant urbanity there, gained for him so much good will, that eventually he became President of the society, which office he retained until the members amalgamated themselves with the Royal Astronomical Society, and transferred to us their valuable collection of books and instruments.
In 1806 Mr. Gompertz contributed his first original paper of importance to the Royal Society, through Dr. Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal of that day. This memoir treats of the summation of certain series by the method of differences, which theretofore had been summed by Landen through the aid of imaginary quantities. It was possibly the composition of this memoir which induced Mr. Gompertz to direct his attention to the interpretation and calculus of imaginary symbols, which soon occupied his thoughts for a considerable period. The results of these speculations he published in a series of tracts at his own expense, and next to his mathematical expression for the law of mortality, he even considered them as the most successful of his essays. I
n 1819 Mr. Gompertz was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and for forty-six years he continued an active member of that illustrious body, and occasionally served as a member of its Council.
In the year 1820 occurs the foundation of our own Society, and if Mr. Gompertz cannot be with strictness considered as one of its actual founders, it is certain that he became one of its warmest and most active supporters from the day of its foundation. On Feb. 9, 1821, he was elected on the Council, and of it he continued a most valuable member for nearly ten years. Many of the most valuable contributions to the Memoirs of our Society were committed to his care, and not a few thus entrusted to him were elucidated and rendered more complete by his explanatory notes. Instances of this will be found in Littrow's paper "On the Transit Instruments," (Astron. Trans. vol. i. p. 275), and in Kreil's paper "On the Equatorial," vol. iv. p. 501.
The first contribution made by Mr. Gompertz to our Memoirs was in 1822, on the subject of "The Aberration of Light;" and in this memoir occurs a passage which it may not be inopportune here to transcribe, not alone for the truth which it contains, but for the sake of the picture which it presents to us of the enthusiasm with which Gompertz was animated in his pursuit of science. "In the contemplation of the sciences," he says, "there is, besides the pleasure arising from the acquirement of knowledge of practical utility, a peculiar charm bestowed by the reasoning faculty itself in a well. directed pursuit of facts; and though the results deduced by the arguments are frequently considered to be the only objects of value by the unlearned, the man of absolute scientific ardour will often, while he is enraptured with the argument, have not the slightest interest for the object for which his argument was instituted." This remarkable evolution of Mr. Gompertz's mind may probably serve as the clue explaining the fact that, although he enriched the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society with many admirable contributions on the subject of the corrections of astronomical instruments, he in no other sense ever became a practical astronomer, or was much habituated to the use of the instruments, with the construction and errors of which he was thus manifestly familiar. Thus we have in the first volume of our Memoirs (Nov.) papers and a supplement on the "Theory of Astronomical Instruments." Again, in the volume for 1824, there occurs the description of a new astronomical instrument, named by the late Francis Baily "The Differential Sextant." There is also a contribution on the subject of the corrections due to errors in the knife-edges of Kater's Convertible Pendulum; but the most practically important astronomical object to which Mr. Gompertz directed his attention was that in connexion with formulæ for the reduction of the apparent places of the stars to their mean co-ordinates.
What Mr. Gompertz effected in this direction may probably be most easily understood from the following quotation of words spoken by Sir John Herschel in his well-known éloge of the late Francis Baily: "It seems almost astonishing that these computations, which lie at the root of all astronomy, and without which no result can be arrived at, and no practical observer can advance a single step, should have remained up to so late a period as the twentieth year of the nineteenth century in the loose and troublesome state which was actually the case, and that not from their theory being not understood, but from their practice not having been systematized. Messrs. Baily and Gompertz, perceiving this want, proceeded to supply it. The subject was investigated generally, and a method was devised for arranging the terms of the corrections for Aberration and Solar and Lunar Nutations. Some of the tables had already been computed, when they heard of Bessel's labours in the same field. Finding that that astronomer had proceeded on a similar principle, but that besides the other corrections he had taken in that of Precession, Messrs. Baily and Gompertz willingly gave way, and certainly nothing more perfect than the Elementa Astronomica,' by Bessel, could have been devised. However, Messrs. Baily and Gompertz were of some use. The complete Catalogue of the Royal Astronomical Society may be partly looked upon as the fruit of the united labours of these two men."
Such, then, are the labours of our late most excellent member in that field of science which we especially cultivate. With the exception, indeed, of certain investigations, unfortunately left incomplete, on meteors and shooting-stars, which occupied his attention during a part of the last years of his life, his most recent contribution to our Memoirs is dated so far back as the year 1829.
It does not seem to be the province of our Society to record, more than by way of the most general reference the labours of Mr. Gompertz in that branch of science in which, perhaps, no man has ever been more highly distinguished We allude to his admirable and most valuable contributions to the theory of Life Assurances and Contingent Reversions, which never ceased to occupy his thought during the remainder of a long and valuable life. The name of Gompertz must be fresh in the recollection of every actuary who truly studies his own profession; and it may not be too much to say that his writings will ever form one of the landmarks in a science which silently but effectually intertwines itself into the material interests of society.
It is thus that, in a brief paragraph, we simply, as members of an astronomical society, pass over a long period of activity replete with interest to other men whose tastes and pursuits are attracted or determined by the interest they take in all that concerns the statistics of human life. In other and more fitting publications they will find the records of these labours of this remarkable man. To us it must be of interest to know that, respected by those who saw him only at a distance, or through the medium of his works, and beloved by his family and those who saw him in the closer relations of life, Benjamin Gompertz, at a ripe old age, died on July 15, 1865, and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery, near Victoria Park.
Benjamin Gompertz's obituary appeared in Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 26:4 (1866), 104-109.