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Sir Thomas Gresham (~1519 - 21 November,1579) was an English financier who worked for King Edward VI of England and his half-sister Queen Elizabeth I of England. He was born in London and educated at Caius, Cambridge. No arm-chair philosopher, he not only played the stock market (or bourse) in Antwerp, Belgium, so well that he was able to eliminate England's European debts, but he also made himself one of the richest men in England. He used this experience to then set up the Royal Exchange modelled on the Antwerp bourse. He also set up Gresham College bequeathing the proceeds from the Royal Exchange to finance the first institution of higher learning in London. For him is named Gresham's law, although the concept had been recognized for years, because it was he who urged it upon Queen Elizabeth when he was trying to persuade her to restore the debased currency.
The weathervane on the Royal Exchange takes its form of a grasshopper from Gresham's coat of arms; this device was later borrowed by Faneuil Hall in Boston.
Gresham appears as a background figure is a series of fictional mystery novels by the British author Valerie Anand (writing under the penname Fiona Buckley). The fictional heroine of the stories, Ursula Blanchard, lived in Antwerp with her first husband while he was one of Gresham's agents.
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