The Royal Exchange was opened by Elizabeth I 455 years ago on this day. Eliot Wilson traces the origins of its success

Tudor England saw massive changes in the economy and how it was understood and approached by the institutions of the state. A population of perhaps 2.1m when Henry VII seized the throne in 1485 doubled to 4m by the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, powering not just economic growth but transformation. Agriculture remained central to England’s wealth but it was the expansion of trade which allowed the country to begin muscling towards the front rank of economies.

Trade meant raw wool and finished cloth: the Lord Chancellor had sat on a Woolsack in the House of Lords since the 14th century as a constant reminder of its importance. And England’s most important trading partners were in the Low Countries, just across the Channel. This vibrant and expanding commercial relationship is where a man called Thomas Gresham enters the scene.
Gresham was the son of Sir Richard Gresham, Lord Mayor of London (1537-38), one of the four members of Parliament for the City in 1539 and 1545 and a rich and successful cloth merchant. He was three times Master of the Worshipful Company of Mercers and a senior figure in the Company of Merchant Adventurers. Thomas Gresham was admitted as a liveryman of the Mercers’ Company in 1543, aged 24, and shortly afterwards left for the Low Countries where he worked as a merchant either on his own account or for his father or uncle, Sir John Gresham, another Master of the Mercers’ Company.

The young........

© City A.M.