---
title: "Northampton table"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "concept"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Northampton table"
aliases: ["Northampton Table of Observations"]
first_seen: "2026-07-09T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["[[entity-richard-price|Richard Price]]","life assurance","mortality tables","[[entity-william-morgan|William Morgan]]"]
seek_code_commit: "f8a723c"
---


An eighteenth-century mortality table derived from the burial registers of Northampton (All Saints parish, from 1735) and published by Richard Price. It has two printed states: an Appendix Table IV in the 1771 first edition of *Observations on Reversionary Payments* (data to 1770), and a re-formed table in the 1783 fourth edition (46 years, 1735–1780), on which the Equitable's business was calculated. For roughly a century it served as a standard reference in British life assurance, and it is disputed whether it overstated mortality.

## References
- [[claim-price-1771-first-edition-prints-northampton-table-as-appendix-table-iv]]
- [[claim-price-northampton-data-run-to-1770-so-1769-completion-date-unsupported]]
- [[claim-price-1783-fourth-edition-reforms-northampton-table-on-1735-1780-data]]
- [[claim-price-northampton-table-standard-actuarial-reference-century]]
- [[claim-price-northampton-table-overestimated-mortality-favouring-insurers]]
- [[claim-bernstein-1996-corroborates-price-table-underestimated-life-expectancy]]
- [[question-verify-price-northampton-table-completion-date]]