British geographer and writer, responsible for writing and publishing the records of the chief travelers and settlers in North America during the 15th and 16th centuries. He went to school at Westminster, where he was a queen's scholar; and then to Christ Church in Oxford. He was ordained into the ministry of the Church of England in 1583. His first published work was his "Divers Voyages touching the Discoverie of America" (1582). He obtained the grant of the next vacant prebend at Bristol, to which he was admitted in 1586 and held with his other preferments until his death. As with the custom of the times, he held other ecclesiastical appointments: personal chaplain to Sir Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Principal Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth I and to King James I, and Chaplain to the English Ambassador in Paris. While in Paris he interested himself in the publication of the manuscript journal "Laudonnière, the Histoire notable de la Florid," which he translated and published in London under the title of "A notable historie containing foure voyages made by certayne French captaynes into Florida." The same year "De orbe novo Petri Martyris Anglerii decades octo illustratae labore et industria Richardi Hackluyti" was published in Paris. This work contains the exceedingly rare copperplate map; it is the first map on which the name of "Virginia" appears. His last publication was a translation of Fernando de Soto's discoveries in Florida, intended to encourage the young colony of Virginia; to Hakluyt, it has been said, "England is more indebted for its American possessions than to any man of that age." He was also a leading director and speculator for the Charter of the Virginia Company of London, in 1589. In 1605 he secured the prospective living of James Town, the intended capital of the colony of Virginia.