In the year 1537, Sir Richard Gresham, the father of Sir Thomas Gresham, whose business had taken him to Antwerp, when he saw the Bourse frequented daily by merchants, wrote a letter to Cromwell in which he suggested the erection of a Bourse in Lombard Street, as the place most frequented by merchants. As nothing came of the proposal he wrote again in the following year with an estimate of the cost, viz. £2000. If, he said, the Lord Privy Seal would induce Alderman Sir George Monoux to part with certain property at cost price he, Gresham, would undertake to raise £1000 towards the building before he went out of office. Whereupon the King addressed a letter to Monoux desiring him to dispose of certain property in Lombard Street, which was wanted for the commonweal of the merchants. Monoux, with Gresham’s consent, referred the matter to arbitration. A yearly sum of twenty marks to be paid by the City was offered. Monoux at first refused to take it, but afterwards, at the King’s request, consented. Then, for some unknown reason, nothing more was done. The matter was left over for many years. At this time Thomas Gresham (son of Sir Richard by his first wife, Audrey, daughter of William Lynne of Southwick, Northampton) was nineteen years of age, and still serving his apprenticeship to his uncle, Sir John Gresham, Mercer. He was received into the Company in 1543. In the same year he was acting for the King at Antwerp. In 1551 he was appointed Royal Agent or King’s merchant, which caused him to reside at Antwerp during many months, and at frequent intervals. On the accession of Mary he was dismissed, but his services were speedily discovered to be necessary, and he was reappointed. Elizabeth continued his appointment. In 1561 his factor, Richard Clough, wrote to him from Antwerp expressing his astonishment that London should have gone on so long without a Bourse:— “Considering what a City London is; and that in so many years the same found not the means to make a Burse, but merchants must be contented to stand and walk in the rain, more like pedlars than Merchants. In this Country, said he (meaning Antwerp), and in all other, there is no kind of people that have occasion to meet but ye have a place for that purpose; indeed and if your business were done (here) and that I might have the leisure to go about it, and that I would be a means to Mr. Secretary to have his favour therein, I would not doubt but to make so fair a burse in London as the great burse is in Antwerp, without soliciting of any Man more than he shall be well disposed to give.”