Richard Hooker (c. 1554-1600). Born in Heavitree near Exeter, educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, elected a Fellow (1577). Deputy Professor of Hebrew (1579). Rector of Drayton Beauchamp, Bucks. (1584). Master of the Temple (1585). Rector of Boscombe, Wilts (1591). Rector of Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury (1595).
Hooker was the leading apologist of the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559 and possibly the greatest of all Anglican divines. His doctrines are set out in his famous treatise Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. (See Ruskin and religion and the influence of Hooker on Ruskin.)