William Makeham

{{Short description|English actuary and mathematician}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}

William Matthew Makeham (11 September 1826 – 17 November 1891) was an English actuary and mathematician.

Makeham was responsible for proposing the age-independent Makeham term in the Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality that, together with the exponentially age-dependent Gompertz term, was one of the most effective theories to describe human mortality.{{cite book |first=Andrew I. |last=Dale |title=A History of Inverse Probability: From Thomas Bayes to Karl Pearson |publisher=Springer |edition=2nd |year=1999 |isbn= 9780387988078|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofinverse0000dale/page/489 489] ff |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofinverse0000dale |url-access=registration }}

Makeham was responsible for two important studies on human mortality:Wolfram Mathworld, [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MakehamCurve.html "Makeham Curve"]

• {{cite journal |last1=Makeham |title=On the Law of Mortality and the Construction of Annuity Tables |journal=The Assurance Magazine, and Journal of the Institute of Actuaries |date=1860 |volume=8 |issue=6 |pages=301–310 |doi=10.1017/S204616580000126X |url=https://archive.org/details/jstor-41134925/page/n1/mode/2up}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Makeham |title=On an Application of the Theory of the Composition of Decremental Forces |journal=Journal of the Institute of Actuaries |date=1874 |volume=18 |pages=317–322 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3018971&view=1up&seq=361}}

He had one wife, Hepzibah Reed, and seven children, William, Amy, Elizabeth, Thomas, Frederick, Emily, and George.