Personal Details
Born 3 October 1728 in Copenhagen, his father Lorentz Lous was director of navigation there. Andreas married twice. His first wife was Christine Weggersløff, the daughter of a senior clergyman. He married her in 1763 and she died in 1777. His second wife was Dorothea Jensenius, the daughter of a state counsellor. Andreas died 17 July 1797.Career
Andreas Lous joined the Danish-Norwegian Navy as a cadet in 1740. He was commissioned as a junior lieutenant in 1749 and rose steadily through the ranks until he became a rear admiral in 1790. He retired in poor health in 1796 with the rank of vice admiral. Early in his career Lous served in the frigate ''Hekla'', and from 1751 to 1753 he served in the frigate ''Docquen'' in the Mediterranean and at Morocco. He later sailed (1755-56) to the West Indies in ''Docquen'' as First Lieutenant under Captain H L Fisker. Later in 1756 he was given some responsibility for dock workings but was soon back at sea in Danish waters in ''Sejeren'' and again to the West Indies in ''Møen''. Some 66% of ''Møen''s crew died, reason unrecorded, and Lous captained her back to Denmark. For having brought ''Møen'' home in difficult circumstances, Lous was awarded a monetary bonus of 500 Rigsdollars. In 1760 Andreas Lous was chief pilot for the waters immediately south of Copenhagen (Dragør and Dvalegrunden). While captain of the troop transport ''Læsø'', this and several transport ships were lost in an October storm near Landskrona - although the crew was saved, his ship was a total loss. In various ships —''Wenden'', ''Jylland'' and ''Saltholm''- serving largely in Øresund in the 1760s he began the survey and measurement of the Sound from Helsingør to Dragør and then further south around the island of Møen. Survey work continued, and in 1769 he was instrumental in the placing of a lighthouse at Nakkehoved at the north of the sound and two years later another lighthouse at Kronborg. Andreas Lous, together with his older brother Professor C C Lous delivered a scathing critique of the then existing (1769) charts for the Kattegat and generated better charts for that area of water - charts for which he was awarded, from 1771, royalty payments that continued until his death. He was also busy charting Denmark's southern waters. Further improvements in the quality and quantity of charts and pilotage instructions would be made some twenty years later byNotes
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References
*Some material here is translated and summarised from the Danish Wikipedia article ''Andreas Lous'', which quote