FAMOUS CENTENARIANS.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15313, 14 August 1923, Page 2

FAMOUS CENTENARIANS.

CLAIMS OPEN TO DOUBT.

A statement was recently published in the Melbourne Argus that there is official confirmation of the age of 109 attributed to Mr Thomas Thomson, who is an inmate of the Benevolent Home at Ballarat. In a letter to the Argus Mr Charles II Wickens, F.1.A., Commonwealth Statistician, says:—The question of the maximum age attainable by a human being under modern conditions lias excited considerable interest, and, if Mr Thomson’s age is duly authenticated, it is probably a modern record, not only for Australia, but 'for the British Empire, or possibly for the world.

In a work on Centenarians published in 1899, Mr T. E. Young, a former president of the Institute of Actuaries, London, reviewed the claims to the attainment of extreme age which had at various times been .current. In particular ho discussed the cases of Henry Jenkins, alleged to have lived from 1501 to 1670 —169 years; Thomas Parr, from 1483 to 1635 —152 years; and the Countess of Desmond, from 1464 to 1604—140 years; and showed that in each case the claim hud proved to be untenable. Jenkins was a mendicant who could neither read nor write. He was alleged to have stated some six or seven years before bis death that, to the best of his remembrance, lie must be about IG2 or 163. The claim in bis case was based on this absolutely unsupported assertion of tiie man himself. In Parr’s case, also, the claim rested exclusively upon the man’s own unsupported personal assertions, the only corroborative record concerning him being the entry of his year of death in the diocesan records at Hereford.*' As regards the Countess of Desmond, it was found on investigation that an earlier countess of that title had been confused with the lady in question, and that in all probability about 40 years should in consequence be deducted from her reputed age. In Hie course of his discussion of the question, Mr Young mentioned that investigations by actuarial societies, covering a long period, the experience of many thousands of assured lives and annuity nominees of advanced age, gave" only 22 indisputable examples of centenarians, and that the oldest of these was a female annuity nominee who died at Ihc ago of 105 years and eight months. Tn these circumstances it is exIcomely interesting to learn that wo have in Australia an authentic case of Hie attainment, of age 109, Mr Wickens adds. For the purpose of placing Ihe authenticity of this occurrence beyond doubt, it would probably he worth while securing some confirmatory evidence, if obtainable, of the .«enuine-ncss of the baptismal ccrtifi-

cate which Mr Thomson has in his possession, and of the identity of Mr Thomson with l the person mentioned therein as being baptised.