Richard Gresham

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The Gresham family crest
The Gresham family crest

Sir Richard Gresham (1494 – 1549) was an English merchant, Lord Mayor of London, and member of parliament. He was the father of Sir Thomas Gresham.

[edit] Family

Gresham was born at Holt, Norfolk, a member of an ancient Norfolk family (see the article on his brother John Gresham).

By his first wife, Audrey Lynn (who died 28 Dec. 1522), he was the father of Sir Thomas Gresham.[1]

His daughter Christian married the first Sir John Thynne, steward of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, who built Longleat.[2] Gresham is thus an ancestor of the Marquesses of Bath.

[edit] Career

Gresham was admitted a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1507.[3] As a mercer, he was in partnership with his brother, John Gresham, in exporting textiles and importing grain from the continent. He supplied King Henry VIII with arras, velvets, and satins. Most of his trade was with the Low Countries, which were the most significant area for English overseas trade for most of the sixteenth century, and he amassed a large fortune. He became Sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1531[4] and was knighted the same year. On 19 May 1536, he was present at the execution of Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London. He was elected as Lord Mayor of London in 1537,[5] and on his death bed Cardinal Wolsey called him his "fast-friend". Gresham paid for the Cardinal's funeral.

He was elected as member of parliament for the City of London in 1539 and 1545.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (1890). Dictionary of National Biography. Macmillan, Vol. XXIII, pp. 141-42.
  2. ^ Stephen (1890), p. 142.
  3. ^ Stephen (1890), p. 139.
  4. ^ Stephen (1890), p. 140.
  5. ^ Stephen (1890), p. 140.