The IFoA Library gratefully acknowledges a kind donation to its historical collections. In September, Stuart Southall FIA (pictured) generously offered his purchase of an Italian decree of 1817 that outlines retirement pension benefits for employees of the ducal court of Parma. What marks out this Italian occupational pension scheme is a tabled scale of benefits linked to the number of years an employee had worked for the Duchess of Parma. In Britain, civil servants began from 1810 to contribute a percentage of salary for a future pension, and an Act of 1834 showed determination of the level of contribution from their salary and service years to achieve an expected benefit.
The IFoA Library still adds each year to its historic collections, based on the texts the institute originally received from founding members to support student learning. It now buys target works of pioneering advances in probability theory, demography and financial mathematics as they appear on the market. With valued support from member advisers who have published works on actuarial history, the library also keenly seeks out evidence of early innovative forms of insurance and deferred financial benefits. Southall hopes his donation can be an encouragement to others to take interest in the historic holdings of the IFoA, as they offer a resource of interesting historical precedent to illustrate presentations of new and modern advances today.
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