Spencer Campbell Thomson

Spencer Campbell Thomson FRSE FFA (1842–1931) was a 19th/20th century Scottish actuary and influential businessman. He introduced statistical mortality rates into life insurance.

He was born on 16 October 1842, the son of William Thomas Thomson FRSE (1813-1883), manager of the Standard Life Assurance Company at 3 George Street in central Edinburgh. The family lived at Trinity Grove in north Edinburgh. His mother was Christian Anne Seamen. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy until 1858 then completed his education at Rugby School before studying at Cambridge University from 1861. His parents were then living at 41 Moray Place on the Moray Estate in Edinburgh's West End.

He graduated BA in 1865 and immediately joined Standard Life as Assistant Manager (aged only 23). From 1874 he acted in a supporting role as Acting Manager and when his father retired from Standard Life in 1878, Spencer replaced him as Manager. Spencer retired in 1904.

In 1870, aged only 28, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, his proposer being Sir Robert Christison.

In the 1870s he lived at 10 Chester Street, a townhouse in Edinburgh's fashionable West end.

From 1890 to 1892 he was President of the Faculty of Advocates.

In 1897 he commissioned the Edinburgh architects George Washington Browne and John More Dick Peddie to wholly remodel the company offices on George Street. This incorporated the pediment of David Bryce's original office of 1839, and the residential flat on the top floor (where he was born).

By 1910 he was living at 10 Eglinton Crescent, still in the West End.

He died at 3 George Street in Edinburgh (at the flat where he was born) on 11 May 1931.

The interior of his office (and his flat) was destroyed in a remodelling of 1975.

In 1869 he married Georgina Maria Joanna Cockburn, daughter of George Ferguson Cockburn, commander of the British Army at Patna, granddaughter of Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn. They had at least five children.

Due to this family connection he was President of the Cockburn Association in Edinburgh.

In 1919 he married a widow, Helen Gladys Walker (nee Montgomery), granddaughter of Sir William Stewart Walker of Bowland KCB.

• Notes on Mortality in India and Some Other Tropical Countries