Hakluyt Society
Encyclopedia
Founded in 1846, the Hakluyt Society is a registered charity based in London, England, which seeks to advance knowledge and education by the publication of scholarly editions of primary records of voyages, travels and other geographical material. The Society is named after Richard Hakluyt
(1552–1616), a collector and editor of narratives of voyages and travels and other documents relating to English interests overseas. Supplementary to its primary role as a publisher of scholarly texts, the Society also attempts to advance its aims by organising and participating in meetings, symposia and conferences which contribute to an increased awareness of geographical exploration and cultural encounter. The Society is a non-profitmaking institution administered by a voluntary and unpaid team of council members and officers. Membership is open to all who have an interest in exploration and cultural encounter.
, ethnology
and natural history
of the regions visited. The Society has to date published over 200 editions in some 350 volumes. All editions are published in English.
Although many of the Society's past editions relate to British ventures, with documentary sources in English, the majority concern non-British enterprises and are based on texts in languages other than English. Translations from Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French or Dutch have regularly appeared, with occasional translations from Russian, Greek, Latin, Ethiopic, Chinese, Persian or Arabic. The translation in which the material is presented is normally a fresh version, but in certain instances might be an earlier rendering, checked and corrected as necessary.
All editions contain scholarly annotation which provides both the general reader and the student with assistance in the elucidation of the material presented, and offers guidance on the relevance of the material within the context of global development and world history. Volumes are produced in a standard binding and furnished with maps and contemporary illustrations. Special editions appear in the Extra Series.
Past Hakluyt Society editions have dealt with the following explorers: Ibn Battuta
, Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen
, Pedro Cieza de León
, John Cabot
, Christopher Columbus
, Ferdinand Magellan
, Cosmas Indicopleustes
, James Cook
, Vasco da Gama
, Semyon Dezhnev
, Francis Drake
, Humphrey Gilbert
, Jean-François de La Pérouse
, Ludwig Leichhardt
, Ma Huan, Olaus Magnus
, Arthur J. M. Jephson
, Jens Munk
, and George Vancouver
.
Currently, two or three volumes are published each year. The Society's Annual General Meeting and Annual Lecture is held at the Royal Geographical Society
. The Society's website hosts a discussion group
and publishes an online Journal of the Hakluyt Society.
, St James’s Square, on the afternoon of Tuesday 15 December 1846. The early to mid-nineteenth century had seen the emergence of a large number of so-called ‘societies’, many of them little more than Clubland gatherings of well-to-do gentlemen whose pleasure it was to meet over dinner to argue and discuss matters of common academic interest. Others, however, like the Hakluyt Society, would attract into their ranks men of formidable scholarship, adopting formal constitutions and expanding their horizons to proselytizing among the wider public. The early years of the century had seen the creation of many of the great societies that subsequently took Royal patronage and became household names, while the decade immediately preceding the foundation of the Hakluyt Society had been particularly fruitful, witnessing the birth of the Ethnological Society (1843), the British Archaeological Association
(1843), the Agricultural Society (1838) and the Numismatic Society (1836). Most closely allied to the Hakluyt Society in terms of its objectives was the Camden Society, founded in 1838 for the publication of early historical and literary material. But while the Hakluyt Society succeeded in retaining its identity through to the present day, the Camden Society
lasted barely sixty years before its absorption into the Royal Historical Society.
The first meeting of the Hakluyt Society, under the chairmanship of the geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, established an eight-man steering group which included the geographer and historian William Desborough Cooley, the Army medical officer Dr Andrew Smith
, the naval officer and surveyor Sir Charles Malcolm, the antiquary Bolton Corney, the British Museum Principal Librarian Sir Henry Ellis
, W. R. Hamilton, FRS, and John Edward Gray
, Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum. The projected society had in fact been the brainchild of Cooley, who had previously criticized the Royal Geographical Society for relying too heavily on contemporary materials in the solution of geographical problems, arguing that the scientific study of geography should involve a far wider analysis and appreciation of earlier sources. Cooley had already established pre-eminence in this field, having in 1841 produced the masterly Negroland of the Arabs, which drew on Arabic and ancient sources. In 1845 his "The Geography of Nyassi", later elaborated into the book, Inner Africa Laid Open (1852), attempted in a similar way to shed light on the geography of the yet unknown interior of Africa. Sadly, Cooley's subsequent refusal to accept first-hand observations that in any way contradicted his hypotheses made him the object of ridicule. However, it was Cooley who took the major role during the Society's formative period, ably assisted in key initiatives by Corney and Smith, while Murchison, throughout his long but somewhat distant association with the Society, occupied no more than a largely figurehead position.
Cooley had proposed that the new society should be known as the "Columbus Society", but at the inaugural Council Meeting, 26 January 1847, it was decided that it be named in commemoration of the Elizabethan historian and expansionist Richard Hakluyt the Younger, collector and editor of narratives of voyages and travels and other documents relating to English interests overseas. Not only did Hakluyt’s name, as a recorder of voyages rather than an explorer in his own right, better reflect the nature of the society, but it also proclaimed the central ambition of the society, which was to advance Hakluyt’s work into the modern age. A resolution was adopted whereby the Society would print and circulate to its members, for a subscription of one guinea per annum, rare accounts of voyages, travels and geographical records dating from any period prior to William Dampier
’s circumnavigation, effectively before the end of the seventeenth century. Meetings were held in a room at the London Library, but in 1849 these transferred to the offices of Mr Richards, the Society’s printer, first in St Martin’s Lane, then from 1850 in Great Queen Street. It was not until 1872 that meetings were convened at the Royal Geographical Society
’s premises, originally in Savile Row and subsequently in Kensington Gore. The Society got off to a flourishing start, attracting 220 members in its first two years.
A General Meeting of the Hakluyt Society was arranged for 4 March 1847 to decide a prospectus, a set of laws and a list of works which were to be published. A constitution was hammered out, providing for a President (R. I. Murchison), two Vice-Presidents (Charles Malcolm and Revd H. H. Milman), a Secretary (W. D. Cooley) and seventeen other council members elected annually. The first year's Council included, in addition to the original members of the steering group, Charles Darwin
, Charles Beke, Captain Charles Ramsay Drinkwater Bethune and the scholar Richard Henry Major
, who would throw himself enthusiastically into the Society’s affairs, promising by the end of the year a complete translation of the letters of Columbus. At another meeting, held in August that year, Council voted that the vignette of Magellan
's ship, the Victoria, should be imprinted on the cover of all volumes. The Society’s first publication, Captain Bethune’s The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, appeared in December that year, closely followed by Major's Select Letters of Christopher Columbus (imprinted 1847 but published in January 1848). Richard Hakluyt's Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America, which the Society had intended for its inaugural publication, was postponed until 1850. In the meantime, Sir Robert Schomburgk's classic edition of Ralegh's voyage to Guiana had appeared (1849), together with Cooley's Sir Francis Drake his Voyage (1849), Thomas Rundall's Voyages towards the North-West, and Major's Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia. Early print-runs were relatively small — around 250 copies to satisfy the existing membership, with a few to spare — at a cost to the Society in the region of £50–60.
Murchison continued as President of the Hakluyt Society until his death in 1871, but he frequently absented himself from meetings and his influence was minimal, most of the executive decisions being made by the Secretary and members of Council. He was succeeded in turn by Sir David Dundas (1871–77), a lawyer and politician, and then by Sir Henry Yule (1877–89), an Oriental scholar and former East India Company
soldier. Yule, very much a 'hands-on' President with a natural affinity for the work of the Society, took a considerably greater interest in the editing of the society's publications than either Murchison or Dundas, and it was his decision that all future volumes should be indexed. R. H. Major, who had taken over as Secretary from Cooley in 1849, held the office until 1858 when his place was taken by the geographer, historian and expedition promoter Clements Robert Markham. Markham’s relationship with the Society, for which he personally edited no fewer than twenty-nine volumes, lasted more than fifty years, first as Secretary (1858–87), then as President (1889–1909). By the turn of the century, when the Society embarked on its Second Series, precisely one hundred volumes had been published. However, it was not until 1908, the final year of Markham's rule, that the Society, with Bolton Corney's Voyage of Captain Don Felipe Gonzalez, finally broke with tradition and published its first post-1700 text. From 1893 Markham was assisted by William Foster
, the East India Company historian and India Office archivist, who served as Secretary until other commitments forced his resignation in 1902. The Society's finances, which in early days were handled by underpaid agents or reluctant volunteers, had by 1897 become so difficult to manage that the appointment of a permanent Treasurer was proposed, but it was not until 1908 that the first Treasurer, Edward Heawood, the Royal Geographical Society's librarian, actually assumed office and held it for thirty-eight years.
In 1909 Sir Clements Markham was succeeded as President by Sir Albert Gray, an ex-member of the Ceylon Civil Service, and it was under Gray that the Society began for the first time to extend its activity beyond that of publication. It supported the establishment of a memorial to Richard Hakluyt in Bristol Cathedral
in 1911, and in 1914 Gray represented the Society on the British Academy
Committee involved in organising the Shakespeare Tercentenary. The period also saw the emergence of women as editors and translators, notably Sigfus Blondal, Bertha Philpotts, Lavinia Anstey and Zelia Nuttall. Membership increased steadily, albeit largely on account of institutional subscriptions which by 1911 accounted for half of the 440 members. Sir William Foster returned to the fold as President from 1928 to 1945, then as Vice-president until his death in 1951. Foster's skill in annotating rubbed off on his editors and resulted in a period distinguished by considerable improvements in the quality of the Society’s publications, together with a steady growth in membership to more than 2000. Foster was succeeded in 1945 by Edward William O'Flaherty Lynam, Superintendent of the Map Room at the British Library
and the first of a long line of post-war presidents whose terms of office were restricted to a period of five years: Malcolm Letts (1950–54); Professor J. N. L. Baker (1955–59); Sir Alan Burns (1959–64); Sir Gilbert Laithwaite
(1964–69); C. F. Beckingham (1969–72); Esmond S. de Beer (1972–78); Glyndwr Williams (1978–82); David Beers Quinn (1982–87); Sir Harold Smedley (1987–92); Professor Paul E. H. Hair (1992–97); Sarah Tyacke (1997–2002); Professor Roy Bridges
(2002–08); Professor Will Ryan (2008–11); and Captain Mike Barritt (2011-). In the post-war period the Society's publication programme benefited from the dedicated labours of those of its voluntary officers who have borne the editorial responsibility of ensuring that the issued volumes conform to the Society's standards and conventions and seeing them through the press, among them R. A.Skelton, Eila Campbell, Terence Armstrong, Sarah Tyacke, Michael Brennan, Robin Law and Will Ryan.
The 1950s saw the introduction of the first titles of the so-called Extra Series: books which were too lavish and costly in their production to be freely distributed to subscribers but were made available to members at reduced prices. Publications of this type had first appeared in 1903–07 with C. R. Beazley's annotated extracts from Hakluyt and the multi-volume MacLehose editions of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations and Purchas's Pilgrimes. However, although now regarded as volumes 1–33 of the Extra Series, only a few sets of the MacLehose printings appeared in Hakluyt Society binding, and none of these books carried the Extra Series imprint. In 1955–67 the Society launched the new series with the 4-volume Journals of Captain James Cook, closely followed by other titles which included the monumental Charts & Coastal Views of Captain Cook's Voyages (1988–92). The Second Series had reached 192 volumes when the Society marked its entry into the twenty-first century by the introduction of its large-format Third Series, which by the summer of 2008 had accounted for nineteen volumes. These included a 3-volume journal of The Malaspina Expedition
, published in association with the Museo Naval, Madrid.
located on the campus of Brown University
. The American Friends was founded in conjunction with the 150th anniversary celebration of the Hakluyt Society. The Rhode Island
merchant John Carter Brown
(1797–1874), was the first American to join the Society as a charter member in 1846.
The American Friends of the Hakluyt Society exists as a non-profit corporation with objectives similar to those of the Hakluyt Society in London, but with a focus on the history of the Americas. The group promotes and helps provide financial support from the United States for the publication of scholarly editions of records of voyages, travels and other geographical material of the past.
Richard Hakluyt
Richard Hakluyt was an English writer. He is principally remembered for his efforts in promoting and supporting the settlement of North America by the English through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America and The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and...
(1552–1616), a collector and editor of narratives of voyages and travels and other documents relating to English interests overseas. Supplementary to its primary role as a publisher of scholarly texts, the Society also attempts to advance its aims by organising and participating in meetings, symposia and conferences which contribute to an increased awareness of geographical exploration and cultural encounter. The Society is a non-profitmaking institution administered by a voluntary and unpaid team of council members and officers. Membership is open to all who have an interest in exploration and cultural encounter.
Editions
The main activity of the Society is the publication of scholarly editions of primary sources on the voyages and travels undertaken by individuals in many parts of the globe. These include early accounts dealing with the geographyGeography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
, ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
and natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
of the regions visited. The Society has to date published over 200 editions in some 350 volumes. All editions are published in English.
Although many of the Society's past editions relate to British ventures, with documentary sources in English, the majority concern non-British enterprises and are based on texts in languages other than English. Translations from Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French or Dutch have regularly appeared, with occasional translations from Russian, Greek, Latin, Ethiopic, Chinese, Persian or Arabic. The translation in which the material is presented is normally a fresh version, but in certain instances might be an earlier rendering, checked and corrected as necessary.
All editions contain scholarly annotation which provides both the general reader and the student with assistance in the elucidation of the material presented, and offers guidance on the relevance of the material within the context of global development and world history. Volumes are produced in a standard binding and furnished with maps and contemporary illustrations. Special editions appear in the Extra Series.
Past Hakluyt Society editions have dealt with the following explorers: Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta
Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta , or simply Ibn Battuta, also known as Shams ad–Din , was a Muslim Moroccan Berber explorer, known for his extensive travels published in the Rihla...
, Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen
Fabian Gottlieb Thaddeus von Bellingshausen was an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, cartographer and explorer, who ultimately rose to the rank of Admiral...
, Pedro Cieza de León
Pedro Cieza de León
Pedro Cieza de León was a Spanish conquistador and chronicler of Peru. He is known primarily for his history and description of Peru, Crónicas del Perú...
, John Cabot
John Cabot
John Cabot was an Italian navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of parts of North America is commonly held to have been the first European encounter with the continent of North America since the Norse Vikings in the eleventh century...
, Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
, Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" ....
, Cosmas Indicopleustes
Cosmas Indicopleustes
Cosmas Indicopleustes was an Alexandrian merchant and later hermit, probably of Nestorian tendencies. He was a 6th-century traveller, who made several voyages to India during the reign of emperor Justinian...
, James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
, Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...
, Semyon Dezhnev
Semyon Dezhnev
Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnyov was a Russian explorer of Siberia and the first European to sail through the Bering Strait. In 1648 he sailed from the Kolyma River on the Arctic Ocean to the Anadyr River on the Pacific...
, Francis Drake
Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the...
, Humphrey Gilbert
Humphrey Gilbert
Sir Humphrey Gilbert of Devon in England was a half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh. Adventurer, explorer, member of parliament, and soldier, he served during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and was a pioneer of English colonization in North America and the Plantations of Ireland.-Early life:Gilbert...
, Jean-François de La Pérouse
Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse
Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse was a French Navy officer and explorer whose expedition vanished in Oceania.-Early career:...
, Ludwig Leichhardt
Ludwig Leichhardt
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt, known as Ludwig Leichhardt, was a Prussian explorer and naturalist, most famous for his exploration of northern and central Australia.-Early life:...
, Ma Huan, Olaus Magnus
Olaus Magnus
Olaus Magnus was a Swedish ecclesiastic and writer, who did pioneering work for the interest of Nordic people. He was reported as born in October 1490 in Östergötland, and died on August 1, 1557. Magnus, Latin for the Swedish Stor “great”, is a Latin family name taken personally, and not a...
, Arthur J. M. Jephson
Arthur J. M. Jephson
Arthur Jeremy Mounteney Jephson was a young adventurer and African explorer, who accompanied H.M.Stanley on the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, 1887-1889.-Emin Pasha Relief Expedition:...
, Jens Munk
Jens Munk
Jens Munk was a Danish navigator and explorer who was born in Norway where his father, Erik Munk, had received several fiefs for his achievements in the Northern Seven Years' War. He returned to Denmark at the age of eight...
, and George Vancouver
George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver RN was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon...
.
Currently, two or three volumes are published each year. The Society's Annual General Meeting and Annual Lecture is held at the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
. The Society's website hosts a discussion group
Discussion group
A discussion group is an online forum for individuals to discuss various topics amongst each other. People add their comments by posting a block of text to the group. Others can then comment and respond. In the early days of the Internet, USENET was the most popular type of discussion group, but...
and publishes an online Journal of the Hakluyt Society.
History
The Hakluyt Society was created at a meeting convened in the London LibraryLondon Library
The London Library is the world's largest independent lending library, and the UK's leading literary institution. It is located in the City of Westminster, London, England, United Kingdom....
, St James’s Square, on the afternoon of Tuesday 15 December 1846. The early to mid-nineteenth century had seen the emergence of a large number of so-called ‘societies’, many of them little more than Clubland gatherings of well-to-do gentlemen whose pleasure it was to meet over dinner to argue and discuss matters of common academic interest. Others, however, like the Hakluyt Society, would attract into their ranks men of formidable scholarship, adopting formal constitutions and expanding their horizons to proselytizing among the wider public. The early years of the century had seen the creation of many of the great societies that subsequently took Royal patronage and became household names, while the decade immediately preceding the foundation of the Hakluyt Society had been particularly fruitful, witnessing the birth of the Ethnological Society (1843), the British Archaeological Association
British Archaeological Association
The British Archaeological Association was founded in 1843; it was established by Charles Roach Smith. It is aimed at the promotion of the studies of archaeology, art and architecture and the preservation of antiquities. After disagreements arose, it was split into two organizations, the newer one...
(1843), the Agricultural Society (1838) and the Numismatic Society (1836). Most closely allied to the Hakluyt Society in terms of its objectives was the Camden Society, founded in 1838 for the publication of early historical and literary material. But while the Hakluyt Society succeeded in retaining its identity through to the present day, the Camden Society
Camden Society
The Camden Society, named after the English antiquary and historian William Camden, was founded in 1838 in London to publish early historical and literary materials, both unpublished manuscripts and new editions of rare printed books....
lasted barely sixty years before its absorption into the Royal Historical Society.
The first meeting of the Hakluyt Society, under the chairmanship of the geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, established an eight-man steering group which included the geographer and historian William Desborough Cooley, the Army medical officer Dr Andrew Smith
Andrew Smith (zoologist)
Sir Andrew Smith KCB was a Scottish surgeon, explorer, ethnologist and zoologist. He is considered the father of Zoology in South Africa having described many species across a wide range of groups in his major work, Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa.Smith was born in Hawick, Roxburghshire...
, the naval officer and surveyor Sir Charles Malcolm, the antiquary Bolton Corney, the British Museum Principal Librarian Sir Henry Ellis
Henry Ellis
Henry Ellis may refer to:* George Henry Ellis , United States Navy sailor* Henry Augustus Ellis , Irish Australian physician and federalist* Henry Ellis , explorer, author, and second colonial Governor of Georgia...
, W. R. Hamilton, FRS, and John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray, FRS was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray ....
, Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum. The projected society had in fact been the brainchild of Cooley, who had previously criticized the Royal Geographical Society for relying too heavily on contemporary materials in the solution of geographical problems, arguing that the scientific study of geography should involve a far wider analysis and appreciation of earlier sources. Cooley had already established pre-eminence in this field, having in 1841 produced the masterly Negroland of the Arabs, which drew on Arabic and ancient sources. In 1845 his "The Geography of Nyassi", later elaborated into the book, Inner Africa Laid Open (1852), attempted in a similar way to shed light on the geography of the yet unknown interior of Africa. Sadly, Cooley's subsequent refusal to accept first-hand observations that in any way contradicted his hypotheses made him the object of ridicule. However, it was Cooley who took the major role during the Society's formative period, ably assisted in key initiatives by Corney and Smith, while Murchison, throughout his long but somewhat distant association with the Society, occupied no more than a largely figurehead position.
Cooley had proposed that the new society should be known as the "Columbus Society", but at the inaugural Council Meeting, 26 January 1847, it was decided that it be named in commemoration of the Elizabethan historian and expansionist Richard Hakluyt the Younger, collector and editor of narratives of voyages and travels and other documents relating to English interests overseas. Not only did Hakluyt’s name, as a recorder of voyages rather than an explorer in his own right, better reflect the nature of the society, but it also proclaimed the central ambition of the society, which was to advance Hakluyt’s work into the modern age. A resolution was adopted whereby the Society would print and circulate to its members, for a subscription of one guinea per annum, rare accounts of voyages, travels and geographical records dating from any period prior to William Dampier
William Dampier
William Dampier was an English buccaneer, sea captain, author and scientific observer...
’s circumnavigation, effectively before the end of the seventeenth century. Meetings were held in a room at the London Library, but in 1849 these transferred to the offices of Mr Richards, the Society’s printer, first in St Martin’s Lane, then from 1850 in Great Queen Street. It was not until 1872 that meetings were convened at the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
’s premises, originally in Savile Row and subsequently in Kensington Gore. The Society got off to a flourishing start, attracting 220 members in its first two years.
A General Meeting of the Hakluyt Society was arranged for 4 March 1847 to decide a prospectus, a set of laws and a list of works which were to be published. A constitution was hammered out, providing for a President (R. I. Murchison), two Vice-Presidents (Charles Malcolm and Revd H. H. Milman), a Secretary (W. D. Cooley) and seventeen other council members elected annually. The first year's Council included, in addition to the original members of the steering group, Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, Charles Beke, Captain Charles Ramsay Drinkwater Bethune and the scholar Richard Henry Major
Richard Henry Major
Richard Henry Major was a geographer and map librarian who curated the map collection of the British Museum from 1844 until his retirement in 1880. During that time he published a number of books related to maps or documents of historical significance...
, who would throw himself enthusiastically into the Society’s affairs, promising by the end of the year a complete translation of the letters of Columbus. At another meeting, held in August that year, Council voted that the vignette of Magellan
Magellan
Magellan may refer to:*Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer who led part of the first expedition around the world*Magellan , a progressive rock band*Magellan , a forerunner of the Excite web portal...
's ship, the Victoria, should be imprinted on the cover of all volumes. The Society’s first publication, Captain Bethune’s The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, appeared in December that year, closely followed by Major's Select Letters of Christopher Columbus (imprinted 1847 but published in January 1848). Richard Hakluyt's Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America, which the Society had intended for its inaugural publication, was postponed until 1850. In the meantime, Sir Robert Schomburgk's classic edition of Ralegh's voyage to Guiana had appeared (1849), together with Cooley's Sir Francis Drake his Voyage (1849), Thomas Rundall's Voyages towards the North-West, and Major's Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia. Early print-runs were relatively small — around 250 copies to satisfy the existing membership, with a few to spare — at a cost to the Society in the region of £50–60.
Murchison continued as President of the Hakluyt Society until his death in 1871, but he frequently absented himself from meetings and his influence was minimal, most of the executive decisions being made by the Secretary and members of Council. He was succeeded in turn by Sir David Dundas (1871–77), a lawyer and politician, and then by Sir Henry Yule (1877–89), an Oriental scholar and former East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
soldier. Yule, very much a 'hands-on' President with a natural affinity for the work of the Society, took a considerably greater interest in the editing of the society's publications than either Murchison or Dundas, and it was his decision that all future volumes should be indexed. R. H. Major, who had taken over as Secretary from Cooley in 1849, held the office until 1858 when his place was taken by the geographer, historian and expedition promoter Clements Robert Markham. Markham’s relationship with the Society, for which he personally edited no fewer than twenty-nine volumes, lasted more than fifty years, first as Secretary (1858–87), then as President (1889–1909). By the turn of the century, when the Society embarked on its Second Series, precisely one hundred volumes had been published. However, it was not until 1908, the final year of Markham's rule, that the Society, with Bolton Corney's Voyage of Captain Don Felipe Gonzalez, finally broke with tradition and published its first post-1700 text. From 1893 Markham was assisted by William Foster
William Foster
- People :*William Foster , Irish bishop*William Foster , American soldier and Medal of Honor recipient...
, the East India Company historian and India Office archivist, who served as Secretary until other commitments forced his resignation in 1902. The Society's finances, which in early days were handled by underpaid agents or reluctant volunteers, had by 1897 become so difficult to manage that the appointment of a permanent Treasurer was proposed, but it was not until 1908 that the first Treasurer, Edward Heawood, the Royal Geographical Society's librarian, actually assumed office and held it for thirty-eight years.
In 1909 Sir Clements Markham was succeeded as President by Sir Albert Gray, an ex-member of the Ceylon Civil Service, and it was under Gray that the Society began for the first time to extend its activity beyond that of publication. It supported the establishment of a memorial to Richard Hakluyt in Bristol Cathedral
Bristol Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity is the Church of England cathedral in the city of Bristol, England, and is commonly known as Bristol Cathedral...
in 1911, and in 1914 Gray represented the Society on the British Academy
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
Committee involved in organising the Shakespeare Tercentenary. The period also saw the emergence of women as editors and translators, notably Sigfus Blondal, Bertha Philpotts, Lavinia Anstey and Zelia Nuttall. Membership increased steadily, albeit largely on account of institutional subscriptions which by 1911 accounted for half of the 440 members. Sir William Foster returned to the fold as President from 1928 to 1945, then as Vice-president until his death in 1951. Foster's skill in annotating rubbed off on his editors and resulted in a period distinguished by considerable improvements in the quality of the Society’s publications, together with a steady growth in membership to more than 2000. Foster was succeeded in 1945 by Edward William O'Flaherty Lynam, Superintendent of the Map Room at the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
and the first of a long line of post-war presidents whose terms of office were restricted to a period of five years: Malcolm Letts (1950–54); Professor J. N. L. Baker (1955–59); Sir Alan Burns (1959–64); Sir Gilbert Laithwaite
Gilbert Laithwaite
Sir Gilbert John Laithwaite, GCMG, KCB, KCIE, CSI was a civil servant and diplomat.-Early life:Gilbert Laithwaite was the eldest of two sons and two daughters, born in Dublin. His father was John Laithwaite of the Post Office survey. His mother was Mary Kearney whose family hailed from Castlerea,...
(1964–69); C. F. Beckingham (1969–72); Esmond S. de Beer (1972–78); Glyndwr Williams (1978–82); David Beers Quinn (1982–87); Sir Harold Smedley (1987–92); Professor Paul E. H. Hair (1992–97); Sarah Tyacke (1997–2002); Professor Roy Bridges
Roy Bridges (historian)
Roy Bridges is a noted historian of exploration and travel with a focus on Africa, its imperial and missionary history. He is an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen....
(2002–08); Professor Will Ryan (2008–11); and Captain Mike Barritt (2011-). In the post-war period the Society's publication programme benefited from the dedicated labours of those of its voluntary officers who have borne the editorial responsibility of ensuring that the issued volumes conform to the Society's standards and conventions and seeing them through the press, among them R. A.Skelton, Eila Campbell, Terence Armstrong, Sarah Tyacke, Michael Brennan, Robin Law and Will Ryan.
The 1950s saw the introduction of the first titles of the so-called Extra Series: books which were too lavish and costly in their production to be freely distributed to subscribers but were made available to members at reduced prices. Publications of this type had first appeared in 1903–07 with C. R. Beazley's annotated extracts from Hakluyt and the multi-volume MacLehose editions of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations and Purchas's Pilgrimes. However, although now regarded as volumes 1–33 of the Extra Series, only a few sets of the MacLehose printings appeared in Hakluyt Society binding, and none of these books carried the Extra Series imprint. In 1955–67 the Society launched the new series with the 4-volume Journals of Captain James Cook, closely followed by other titles which included the monumental Charts & Coastal Views of Captain Cook's Voyages (1988–92). The Second Series had reached 192 volumes when the Society marked its entry into the twenty-first century by the introduction of its large-format Third Series, which by the summer of 2008 had accounted for nineteen volumes. These included a 3-volume journal of The Malaspina Expedition
Malaspina Expedition
The Malaspina Expedition was a scientific exploration that took place during a five-year voyage around the globe, commanded by Alessandro Malaspina and José de Bustamante y Guerra. Although the expedition receives its name from Malaspina, he always insisted on giving Bustamante an equal share of...
, published in association with the Museo Naval, Madrid.
American Friends of the Hakluyt Society
A sister organization, The American Friends of the Hakluyt Society, was founded in 1996 at the John Carter Brown LibraryJohn Carter Brown Library
The John Carter Brown Library is an independently funded research library of history and the humanities located on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island...
located on the campus of Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
. The American Friends was founded in conjunction with the 150th anniversary celebration of the Hakluyt Society. The Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
merchant John Carter Brown
John Carter Brown
John Carter Brown II was a book collector whose library formed the basis of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.-Biography:...
(1797–1874), was the first American to join the Society as a charter member in 1846.
The American Friends of the Hakluyt Society exists as a non-profit corporation with objectives similar to those of the Hakluyt Society in London, but with a focus on the history of the Americas. The group promotes and helps provide financial support from the United States for the publication of scholarly editions of records of voyages, travels and other geographical material of the past.
Further reading
- R. C. Bridges & P. E. H. Hair (eds), Compassing the Vaste Globe of the Earth, Studies in the History of the Hakluyt Society, London, 1996
- Roy Bridges, 'William Desborough Cooley (1795–1883)', Geographers Biobibliographical Studies, 27, 2008, pp. 43–62
- G. R. Crone, '"Jewells of Antiquitie", the Work of the Hakluyt Society', The Geographical Journal, 128, 1962
- William Foster, 'The Hakluyt Society, a Retrospect 1846–1946', in Edward Lynam (ed.), Richard Hakluyt & his Successors, A Volume issued to commemorate the Centenary of the Hakluyt Society, London, 1946
- Dorothy Middleton, 'The Early History of the Hakluyt Society 1847–1923', The Geographical Journal, 152, 1986, pp. 217–224
- Dorothy Middleton, 'The Hakluyt Society 1846–1923', Annual Report for 1984, Hakluyt Society, pp. 12–23