Carl Christopher Georg Andræ (14 October 1812 – 2 February 1893) was a Danish politician and mathematician. From 1842 until 1854, he was professor of mathematics and mechanics at the national military college. He was elected to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1853. Andræ was by royal appointment a member of the 1848 Danish Constituent Assembly. In 1854, he became

Finance Minister A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfoli ...

in the Cabinet of Bang before also becoming Council President of Denmark 1856-1857 as leader of the Cabinet of Andræ. After being replaced as Council President by Carl Christian Hall in 1857 Andræ continued as Finance Minister in the Cabinet of Hall I until 1858. Being an individualist he, after the defeat of the National Liberals, never formally joined any political group but remained for the rest of his life a sceptical de facto conservative spectator of the 'Constitutional Struggle'.

Early life and education

Andræ was born in Hjertebjerg Rectory on the island of

Møn Møn () is an island in south-eastern Denmark. Until 1 January 2007, it was a municipality in its own right but it is now part of the municipality of Vordingborg Municipality, Vordingborg, after merging with the former municipalities of Langeb ...

. His parents were captain at the Third Jutland Infantry Regiment Johann Georg Andræ (1775–1814) Nicoline Christine Holm (1789–1862). He enrolled at Landkadetakademiet in 1825. In 1829, he was appointed to Second Lieutenant in the Road Corps. He followed a course in mathematics under

Hans Christian Ørsted Hans Christian Ørsted (; 14 August 1777 – 9 March 1851), sometimes Transliteration, transliterated as Oersted ( ), was a Danish chemist and physicist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields. This phenomenon is known as ...

at the College of Applied Sciences before enrolling at the new Militære Højskole in 1830. He graduated with honours in December 1834 and was then made a First Lieutenant in the Engineering Corps. He completed two study trips to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1835–38, and he made significant contributions to the field of

geodesy Geodesy or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the Figure of the Earth, geometry, Gravity of Earth, gravity, and Earth's rotation, spatial orientation of the Earth in Relative change, temporally varying Three-dimensional spac ...

Single transferable vote

Andræ developed a multi-winner ranked voting system, a version of what is now called the

single transferable vote The single transferable vote (STV) or proportional-ranked choice voting (P-RCV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vot ...

(STV), which was used in Danish elections from 1855. This was two years before Thomas Hare published his first description of an STV system, without reference to Andræ. Thoroughly convinced of the soundness of his method of electing representatives and ready to defend it in the cabinet or the parliament, he saw it used successfully in Danish elections. But he made no effort to bring it to the attention of scientific men and statesmen in other countries, much less to defend his claim as an inventor.

Personal life

In 1842, Andræ married Hansine Pouline Schack, an early feminist, who commented on his political views in her diaries, published from 1914 to 1920 as ''Geheimeraadinde Andræs politiske Dagbøger''. He died on 2 February 1893. He is buried in Assistens Cemetery in Copenhagen.

Notes

External links

Author profile
in the database zbMATH

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Andrae, Carl Christoffer Georg 1812 births 1893 deaths People from Møn Burials at Assistens Cemetery (Copenhagen) Ministers for finance of Denmark Danish mathematicians Prime ministers of Denmark Single transferable vote Speakers of the Folketing 19th-century Danish politicians Members of the Rigsrådet (1855-1866)