Sir Thomas Gresham
SIR THOMAS GRESHAM (1519 – 79), Sir Thomas Gresham was an extremely successful member of the Mercers’
Company – a trading mercer, entrepreneur, skilled financier, and eventually a
Royal Agent.
He was born c.1518/19 in Milk Lane, London, the second son of Sir Richard Gresham,
also a Mercer. He attended Gonville College, Cambridge, and was then apprenticed
to his uncle Sir John Gresham, and admitted to the Mercers’ Company in 1543. He
eventually became indispensable to Elizabeth I as Royal Agent in the Netherlands,
and was knighted in 1559.
Gresham’s Day Book (personal account book) is held in the Mercers’ Company Archives.
It spans the period 1546 to 1552, and shows the meticulous care with which Gresham
organised his finances – the book is arranged in an elaborate and obscure form
of double entry accounting.
Gresham was responsible for the idea of building an Exchange in the City of London – a focal point for all business dealings. In 1565 he inspired the Corporation
of the City of London and the Mercers’ Company to join him in this venture – he
would build the Exchange, and if the Corporation and the Mercers’ Company provided
the site, they would eventually own the building on the death of Gresham and his
wife. The exchange was built and opened by Elizabeth I in 1570.
The first Exchange was an ambitious and successful enterprise. It could even
be argued it was Gresham’s inspired idea that set the City of London on the road
to becoming a world trade centre. The first Exchange perished in the Great Fire
of 1666, the second was destroyed by fire in 1838, and the present third Royal
Exchange, designed by Sir William Tite, was opened in 1844.Gresham died of a heart attack in 1579, and was buried at St Helen’s Bishopsgate.
Lady Ann Gresham, his wife, lived on until 1596. In 1575 Gresham had written his
will, in which he stipulated for the first time that, although the Corporation
and the Mercers’ Company would eventually own the Exchange, the revenue from it
was to be used to fund an educational establishment to provide learned free lectures
for the City of London – Gresham College. The Corporation and the Mercers’ Company have jointly administered the Royal
Exchange and Gresham College since 1596. Gresham College continues to thrive
and there are currently eight professors and two visiting professors. For a personal
insight into how one such professor views the College see Gresham College - A Short, Personal, Alternative History written by Professor Emeritus of Commerce and Fellow at Gresham College, Michael Mainelli.
