Gresham College

Sir Thomas Gresham (c1518-1579) acquired wealth through his activities as a Mercer and Royal Agent. The death of his only son and heir in 1564 enforced a decision on the ultimate disposal of this wealth, leading Gresham to fund the building of the Royal Exchange in 1566, and under the terms of his will of 1575, transform his spacious house in London's Bishopsgate into a college. The will provided for the seven professors to lecture on astronomy, divinity, geometry, law, medicine, music and rhetoric, and who were to be conjointly governed by the City Corporation and the Mercers' Company. The success of the lectures, particularly in astronomy and geometry, led to the incorporation of the Royal Society in 1663, and the pursuit of its activities at Gresham College. This link was maintained until the Royal Society moved to new quarters in 1710. In 1768, by act of parliament, the site of Gresham College was sold to the crown, and the lectures were given in a room at the Royal Exchange until the building of a new college site on Gresham an Basinghall Streets in 1843. The College was omitted from incorporation into the University of London, though in the 1880s the City and Guilds of London Institute conducted its business from the College, whose premises were rebuilt in 1913. In 1965 negotiations were conducted between the Gresham Grand Committee and the City University on a possible association of the lectures with the university. In 1966 their transfer was approved for an initial five years. In 1975, proposals by the university and the Gresham Grand Committee were accepted to incorporate the Business School and the Unit for Banking and International Banking into a new Gresham Building on the main university campus. In 1979 two Gresham professorships in Engineering and Commerce were agreed in addition to the originally constituted seven subjects, as well as a scheme for Gresham Research Fellows. The Gresham College Council was restructured in 1986-1987 and resulted in the discontinuation of the Gresham Lectures at City University.