Richard Hakluyt
English geographer, cleric and historian Richard Hakluyt (c.1552-1616) was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church College, Oxford, where he is regarded as the first professor of geography.
He is best known for promoting the English colonisation of North America through works such as Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) and The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589–1600) and introducing the use of globes into English schools.
Hakluyt served as chaplain and secretary to the English embassy in Paris (1583—1588), collecting information about the French fur trade in Canada and Spanish movements in the Americas, and made diligent inquirie of such things as might yield any light unto our westerne discoveries.
After he returned from Paris, Hakluyt held important positions at Bristol Cathedral and Westminster Abbey and acted as a consultant to the newly founded East India Company. He was Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury's chaplain during Cecil's time as Elizabeth I and James I's Secretary of State.
Hakluyt's works were a fertile source of material for William Shakespeare and other contemporary authors. His Principal Navigations, in three volumes, drew on material in many languages, used eyewitness accounts wherever possible, and provided almost everything known about early English voyages to North America.
His name and reputation are preserved in the Hakluyt Society, instituted in 1846 to publish rare and previously unpublished accounts of voyages and travels and promote interest in expeditions and geographical writings.
