Author; born in
England about 1553.
Educated at Oxford University, he was engaged there as a lecturer on cosmography, and was the first who taught the use of globes.
In 1583 he published an account of voyages of discovery to
America; and four years afterwards, while with the
English ambassador at
Paris,
Sir Edward Stafford, probably as his chaplain, he published in French a narrative of the voyages of
Laudonniere and others; and in 1587 he published them in
English, under the title
Of four voyages unto Florida.
On his return to
England in 1589,
Hakluyt was appointed by
Raleigh one of the company of adventurers for colonizing
Virginia.
His greatest work,
The principal Navigations, voyages, Trafficks, and discoveries of the English nation, made by sea or over land, to the most remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth, at any time within the compass of these fifteen hundred years, was published the same year.
It contains many curious documents, and is illustrated by maps.
Anthony à
Wood, writing late in the seventeenth century, referring to this great work, spoke of it as an “honor to the realm of
England, because possessing many ports and islands in
America that are bare and barren, and only bear a name for the present, but may prove rich places in future time.”
Hakluyt was appointed prebendary of
Westminster in 1605, having been previously prebendary of
Bristol.
Afterwards he was rector of Wetheringset,
Suffolk, and at his death, Oct. 23, 1616, was buried in
Westminster Abbey.
Henry Hudson, who discovered Spitzbergen in 1608, gave the name of Hakluyt's Head to a point on that island; and-Bylot gave his name to an island in
Baffin Bay.
A society founded in 1846, for the republication of early voyages and travels, took his name.
