Last week I mentioned that Gilbert Palin wrote to Sir
William Palin Elderton and discussed family History. Gilbert also wrote that he wished William
would continue with the family research because William “has clerical facilities”. What
did he mean by that and how is this Sir William Palin Elderton related?
To find how William Palin Elderton is connected we need to
go back to the “Portrait Palins”. Thomas
Palin and Elizabeth Smythe had 13 children.
From these 13 children there are three distinct branches. John Palin born 1749 (my branch), Thomas Palin
born 1754 and William Palin born 1758. William
Palin Elderton is a descendant from Thomas Palin born 1754. (see picture at bottom)
Thomas Palin, born 1754, married Elizabeth Ellis in
Gloucester in 1781 and they had 5 children before her death in 1801. One of these children was Frances Palin born 1800
in Gloucester. Frances then married
Charles Elderton in 1851 and they had ten children. One was William Alexander Elderton and he was born in 1839
and he married Sarah Lapidge in 1875 and they had eight children, one of which
was William Palin Elderton born in 1877 in London.
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| Sir William Palin Elderton |
We are able to find William Palin Elderton in the 1881-1911
census and in the 1939 Registry. It was
written that “It had been intended that
Elderton should go up to Cambridge after leaving school, but the untimely death
of his father meant the abandonment of the plan and Elderton went perforce
straight from school into business life.”
In the 1891 census we find William living with his Aunt and Uncle, Mary
and Alfred Wilmot, in London and his occupation is insurance clerk. In the 1911 census he is again living with
his mother and siblings and his occupation is Actuary with Star Life Assurance.
Actuary: a person who compiles and analyzes statistics
and uses them to calculate insurance risks and premiums.
According to Wikipedia “In 1900 when he was training to be an actuary Elderton met Karl Pearson and was drawn into the University
College statistical group. In 1902 Elderton computed the first
tables of Pearson's chi-squared and in 1907 he published an exposition of the Pearson curves for actuaries. His sister Ethel M. Elderton worked for Pearson, and together the Eldertons wrote an
introduction to the new ideas in statistics.
William
Palin Elderton wrote 3 books
- (1906) Frequency-Curves and Correlation. London: Charles and Edwin Layton, 172 pages
- (1909) Primer of Statistics. London: A&C Black Ltd (written with sister)
- (1914)The Construction of Mortality and Sickness Tables : a Primer. London : A. & C. Black.
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His interests outside professional life were as varied and far-ranging
as they were within it.
He had an intense love and an intimate knowledge of the countryside,
its villages and particularly its churches, which had been fostered by his
having, in youth and early manhood, spent his week-ends and holidays walking
and camping. In his early business life, he lived at Streatham but some time
before his marriage he purchased an old cottage and some acres of land at
Amersham; he modernized and enlarged the building and brought a considerable
area of the land under cultivation. The garden was an abiding joy to him; the
house at Amersham was his home for some 40 years and he left it only a few
months before his death, when his health was beginning to fail. He was fond of
sketching and painting and had some considerable talent, exhibiting a number of
watercolours at the Buckinghamshire Art Society, of which he was for a time
President. He was a great reader and a lover of the poets and, with his superb
memory, could quote extensively from them; in his youth he had himself tried
his hand at composing poetry.
He took a considerable interest
in genealogy; he became a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists and contributed
to that Society a paper on the family connexions of William Morgan.
He was married in 1920 to Enid Muriel Podmore, whose home before her
marriage was at Grange-over-Sands; she and her family were interested in
teaching. It was an ideally happy marriage; many of Elderton’s interests he
shared with his wife-his love of the countryside, of his home, of literature
and the arts. She was a great support and comfort to him; a good linguist, she
was able to lend him practical assistance in his reviewing of some of the
foreign actuarial journals. Lady Elderton, who was some years younger than her
husband, survives him. There was one child of the marriage, Hubert, who
followed his father to Merchant Taylors’ School and later went up to Oxford
before service in the Armed Forces during the Second World War; he is now
living in South Africa.
As also seen in the above mentioned memoir
During the First World War Elderton served with Sir Alfred Watson as
statistical adviser to the Ministry of Shipping, and his work was recognized by
the award of the C.B.E. after the cessation of hostilities. He was also
honoured by the French Government, who made him a Chevalier of the Legion of
Honour. He carried out similar duties in the Second World War, ultimately
becoming chief statistical adviser to the Ministry of War Transport when that
organization came into being as a result of the merging of the Ministry of
Shipping and the Ministry of Transport. For his services in this capacity, he
was created a K.B.E. in 1946; a knighthood had already been conferred on him in
1938.
So as we learned last week, Gilbert Walter Palin may have
initiated William Palin Elderton’s interest in the family history or at least
added to it. I would love to see if I could
get a copy of that genealogy paper that Sir William Palin Elderton submitted to
the Society of Genealogists. I wonder
how far back he could trace his Palin side of his family tree.
I also wonder if Sir William Palin Elderton ever met Thomas
Basset Macaulay, President of Sun Life Assurance. Not only were they both esteemed actuaries
but they were also related by marriage.
If anyone can assist me with the above two queries, please,
please contact me!!
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