Sir Thomas, the founder of the Royal Exchange and of the college called by his name in London, was born in 1519. His father had amassed great wealth and attained great eminence as a merchant and bill-broker in the reign of Henry VIII., and resolved to train his son to succeed him in his business. After a thorough education at Caius College, Cambridge, young Gresham was apprenticed to his uncle, a knight and a distinguished member of the Merchants Company. Under Edward VI., Gresham was employed on the same services as his father had performed for that king's father, and in the course of Edward's short reign he made no fewer than forty voyages to Antwerp on the royal business. By his financial skill and foresight he rendered great service to the revenues of the English crown, which he rescued from the extortions of Dutch and Jewish capitalists, and introduced with great effect the practice of raising money from native money-lenders, in preference to foreigners, who exacted a ruinous rate of interest. Mary and Elizabeth continued him in his employment, and the latter knighted him in 1559. He had now amassed an immense fortune, and built himself a splendid house in Bishopsgate Street (which, after his wife's death, was used as Gresham College, and the site of which is now occupied by the excise office), where he lived in great state, and where, by command of Elizabeth, he often entertained the ambassadors and visitors of rank that thronged her court. To these circumstances Gresham owed his title of the "Royal Merchant."

During his repeated visits to Antwerp, Gresham had seen and fully appreciated the value of a general place of rendezvous for the merchants of the city. Anxious to introduce something of the kind into London, he offered to build a suitable house if the citizens would furnish a site. A piece of ground was accordingly bought, and a building on the model of the Bourse of Antwerp was erected and ready for use in 1569. In the following year it was opened in state by Elizabeth, who, by a trumpet and herald, proclaimed it "The Royal Exchange." This building was burned down in the great fire of London, but was afterwards rebuilt on a larger scale and at a cost of nearly £59,000. In 1838 this edifice was destroyed, like its predecessor, by fire; but on the same site a new exchange, of far greater dimensions and more splendid in style, was opened in 1844 by the Queen in state. See LONDON.

Gresham invested a good deal of his wealth in landed property in various parts of England. At one of his estates, that of Osterlay near Brentford, he used sometimes to entertain Queen Elizabeth. Extant accounts describe the splendour and extravagance of these passages of her Majesty.

**GRESHAM COLLEGE.** See London.