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SIR THOMAS GRESHAM (1519-1579)
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GRESHAM, SIR THOMAS (1519-1579), London merchant, the founder of the Royal Exchange and of Gresham College, London, was descended from an old Norfolk family; he was the only son of Sir Richard Gresham, a leading London merchant, who for some time held the office of lord mayor, and for his services as agent of Henry VIII. in negotiating loans with foreign merchants received the honour of knighthood. s Though his father intended him to follow his own profession, he nevertheless sent him for some time to Caius College, Cambridge, but there is no-information as to the duration of his residence. It is uncertain also whether it was before or after this that he was apprenticed to his uncle Sir John Gresham, who was also a merchant, but we have his own testimony that he served an apprenticeship of eight years. In 1543, at the age of twenty-four, he was admitted a member of the Mercers' Company, and in the same year he went to the Low Countries, where, either on his own account or