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244 walk for the merchants of his native capital, similar to what he had seen in Antwerp and other foreign cities, but who died before he could carry his design into execution. His son received a university education, having studied at Caius (or, as it was then called, Gonville) College, Cambridge, but was from the first intended by his father for a commercial life, and accordingly became a member of the Mercers' Company, the same to which Sir Richard himself, and also his brother Sir John Gresham, belonged. Sir Thomas was employed, as his father had been, in negotiating foreign loans, and managing other money transactions, by Edward VI., and enjoyed the distinguished favour both of that king and of his successors, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, from the latter of whom he received his knighthood in 1559. Ten years after, by his advice, the experiment was first tried of raising a loan for the crown at home, instead of resorting, as had always hitherto been done, to foreign capitalists; and from that time the new plan continued usually to he followed, to the great advantage both of the crown and of the public. Sir Thomas proposed to the lord mayor and citizens of London to erect a commodious building for the merchants to meet in, at his own charge, provided they would find him a site; and, his offer being at once accepted, a piece of ground, then covered with three streets, called New-alley, Swan-alley, and St. Christopher's-alley, was purchased for 3532l. The houses, it is related, about eighty in number, being cried by a bellman, and sold to persons who agreed to take them down and carry away the materials, brought the sum of 478l. ; after which the ground was levelled at the charge of the city, and possession of it given by the lord mayor and aldermen to Gresham, who laid the first stone of the new building on the 7th of June, 1566; and by November of the following year the edifice, which was of brick, was covered with a roof of slate. It was at first called the Bourse or Burse; but in 1570, soon after it was finished, as Holinshed tell us, "the three-and-twentieth of January, the queen's majesty, accompanied with her nobility, came from her house at the Strand,