British Actuarial Thought in Defined Benefit Pensions (1905–1997)

The recognisable British private staff pension scheme, funded by a mixture of employer and employee contributions based on percentage of salary, paid over the period of service of the employee and invested in a trust fund, with benefits defined with reference to the salary history and years of service of the employee, first emerged over the second half of the nineteenth century. Ad hoc unfunded pension arrangements arose amongst some large employers earlier in that century. The occasional historical precedent of earlier funded arrangements for post-employment benefits can also be found: the earliest funded scheme for the provision of widows’ annuities to ‘employees’ is thought to be the Scottish Ministers’ Fund, which was established in the mid-eighteenth century.