of J.G.R. Andreae He was born in
Hanover, the son and one of two children of the wealthy court pharmacist Leopold Andreae (1686–1730), owner of the
Andreae Pharmacy (Andreae & Co.), and Katharina Elisabeth Rosenhagen (died 1752). His grandfather was the pharmacist Ernst Leopold Andreae (born ca. 1640). The Andreae pharmacy had been founded in 1639 with a ducal privilege from
Christian Louis, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and taken over by his great-grandfather Johann Andreae in 1645. It quickly came to serve the ducal court and became the official court pharmacy. His father died early and he was raised by his mother, "a very active, intelligent and righteous woman," who arranged for him to receive an extraordinarily good education for his era. He studied all the sciences and learned all the important languages of 18th century Europe. Andreae learned the art of
pharmacy in his family pharmacy, which at that time was managed by the court pharmacist Ruge from
Celle. Urged by the court physician P.G. Werlhof (1699–1767) to study natural sciences, he studied geology and chemistry under
Johann Heinrich Pott in Berlin, chemistry,
mineralogy and
metallurgy under
Johann Andreas Cramer in Blankenburg, and chemistry under
Hieronymus David Gaubius in Leyden. In 1747 he became head of his family's pharmacy in Hanover, at the time still owned by his mother. His mother formally ceded the ownership to him in 1751, shortly before her death. In November 1751, he married Ilse Sophie Müller (1728–1795). The marriage was a happy one, but they had no children of their own. In 1763, he undertook a scientific expedition across Switzerland, to study herbaria, fossil and crystal collections,
salt evaporation ponds,
hot springs and
glaciers. His
letters from Switzerland were published 1764–65 in the
Hannoversche Magazin, and were published as an elaborate book in Zurich in 1776. He was highly regarded by the Hanover government and often asked for advice. On behalf of the Prince Elector of Hanover, he studied a great number of types of soil and their uses for agriculture. In 1767, he published his
Alchemistische Briefe, with many pharmaceutical insights. Between 1778 and 1781, he employed
Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart (a pupil of
Carl Linnaeus) to organise his natural history collections, including an
herbarium and a collection of seeds. He also wrote poetry and was a music lover. He was a friend of many famous contemporaries he had met on his travels—among them
Pieter van Musschenbroek,
Jean-André Deluc,
Benjamin Franklin,
George Shaw and
Philipp Friedrich Gmelin—and corresponded regularly with them. His natural history collections were known throughout Europe. He was also a great admirer of
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. His only sister Sophie Elisabeth Andreae (1730–1764) was married to the banker turned theatre director
Abel Seyler, who became "the leading patron of German theatre" in his lifetime. Andreae viewed his brother-in-law with some scepticism. As his sister died in 1764 and her husband devoted himself completely to the theatre, their three children—
Abel Seyler the Younger,
Ludwig Erdwin Seyler and Sophie Seyler, later married to the poet
Johann Anton Leisewitz—were raised by J.G.R. Andreae and his wife from 1764, and they were described as loving parents for his sister's children. Andreae declined memberships of several scientific societies, as he regarded such honours as "learned charlatanry." The Andreae family were one of the most highly regarded families in Hanover. Described as kind and generous to everyone, J.G.R. Andreae in particular was one of the city's major benefactors in his lifetime. == Works ==