John Gresham - Life

Life

Gresham was probably born in 1495, at Holt, in Norfolk, and was descended from an old Norfolk family (see section 'Gresham Family', below). Biographers have suggested that he probably attended a school kept by Augustinian canons at nearby Beeston Regis. At that time, England was a Roman Catholic country and was largely dependent on the church for education.

In about 1510, Gresham was apprenticed to John Middleton, a London mercer, and after serving his seven years he was admitted as a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers. In 1519, he and his older brother William Gresham were both elected to the livery of the company. Later, John Gresham was four times Master of the Mercers' Company

Gresham was in partnership with his brother, Richard Gresham, in the export of textiles and in importing grain from Germany and wine from Bordeaux. He also imported traded in silks and spices from the Ottoman Empire and imported timber and skins from the Baltic. He founded the Russia Company to trade with Russia. Meanwhile, he acted as an agent for Cardinal Wolsey, and through him knew Thomas Cromwell.

Gresham invested his money in land, buying the manors of Titsey, Tatsfield, Westerham, and Lingfield on the borders of Surrey and Kent, as well as properties in Norfolk and Buckinghamshire. He lived at a great house called Titsey Place at Oxted in Surrey from 1534 until his death.

Gresham was Sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1537–1538 and at the same time was knighted. He was a member of the Royal household between 1527 and 1550, first as a 'gentleman pensioner' and later as one of the 'esquires of the body' of King Henry VIII. In 1539, the king granted Gresham the manor of Sanderstead in Surrey, following the dissolution of the monasteries: it had previously belonged to the Minster of Winchester since the year 962.

In 1541, Gresham was one of the jurors who tried Thomas Culpepper and Francis Dereham for treason - that is, intimacy with Queen Catherine Howard. Both were duly beheaded at Tyburn on 10 December 1541, and their heads were put on display on London Bridge. Queen Catherine Howard was subsequently executed on 13 February 1542.

In 1546, he was one of the King's commissioners to survey the properties of chantries to be dissolved in Surrey and Sussex.

In 1547, Sir John Gresham became Lord Mayor of London, and after the end of his term of office continued to serve as an alderman.

In 1555, a year before his death, he founded Gresham's School in the town of his birth, Holt in Norfolk. Gresham endowed the school with land and money and placed these endowments in the care of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, which has continued to carry out his trust to the present day.

Gresham died on 23 October 1556, ‘of a profuse fever’ and was given "a very grand and very papistical funeral". His tomb is in the City of London church of St Michael Bassishaw.