James Gray Kyd


James Gray Kyd CBE FFA FRSE was a Scottish actuary who served as Registrar General for Scotland 1937 to 1949 and President of the Faculty of Actuaries 1944 to 1946.

Life

He was born in Aberdeen on 9 August 1882 the son of Thomas Kyd, actuary, and later manager of the Northern assurance company. The family lived at 74 Queen’s Road in Aberdeen.
James attended Aberdeen Grammar School. He then joined his father’s firm at the Northern Assurance and enrolled as an actuary student in 1903. He was admitted as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries in 1907. In 1912 he left to join the Civil Service. This in turn led him to a job in the Irish Insurance Commission in Dublin where he stayed until 1921. He moved to London in 1926 and rose to be Principal Actuary in the Civil Service. In 1937 he returned to Scotland as Registrar General in place of Andrew Froude who had retired due to ill-health.
In 1940 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were John Alexander Inglis, Alexander Aitken, Sir John Jeffrey, and Alexander Graham Donald. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1942.
His diverse interests led him to be both Chairman of the Scots Ancestry Research Society 1945 to 1968 and Honorary President of the Scottish Rights of Way Society 1959 to 1962. His time given to these activities increased following retiral in 1948.
He died on 25 June 1968 at Hurstpierpoint in Sussex.

Family

In 1912 he married Marjorie Amey Chalmers.

Publications