Powys-Lybbe Forbears - Person Sheet
Powys-Lybbe Forbears - Person Sheet
BirthHolt, Norfolk
Death23 Oct 1556, His house at St Mary Aldermanbury, London
Burial30 Oct 1556, St Michael Bassishaw church, London.
General4th s. Mayor of London: 1547.
Notes for Sir John Gresham
He and his wife had 11 children, there are all listed in the Topographer and Genealogist vol II, pp. 512-4.

His IPM (Inquisition Post Mortem) is transcribed into “Miscellanea Genealogica et heraldica”, New series, vol III, p. 85.  The footnotes include his death date and place.  His heir was his son William.
DNB Main notes for Sir John Gresham
Co-subject: Gresham, Sir John

Dates: d. 1556
Active Date: 1536
Gender: Male
Field of Interest: Public and Social Service, Civil Administration
Occupation: Lord mayor of London, member of the Mercers', and a founder of the Russia Company

Article
Gresham, Sir John d. 1556, lord mayor of London, younger brother of Sir Richard Gresham, was born at Holt. He was admitted to the Mercers' Company in 1517. In partnership with his brother Richard, and sometimes by himself, he acted as agent for both Wolsey and Cromwell. He appears as a gentleman-pensioner in 1526 (State Papers, Hen. VIII, iv. 871). In the subsidy of 1535 he was assessed at three thousand marks. His principal trade was with the Levant (Burgon, i. 11-12), and, besides being a merchant of the staple and a leading member of the merchant adventurers, he was one of the founders of the Russia Company in May 1555 (State Papers, Dom. 1601-3, p. 439). He was occasionally consulted by the council, and deputed by them to examine into disputes between English and foreign merchants (Acts of the Privy Council, new ser. 1890, i. 38, 59, 162). He was sheriff in 1537, the year of Richard Gresham's mayoralty, and was lord mayor ten years later, when he revived the costly pageant of the marching watch on the eve of St. John the Baptist, which had been suspended since 1524. He purchased the family seat at Holt from his brother William in 1546, and converted it into a free grammar school, which he endowed with freehold estates in Norfolk and London, and entrusted to the management of the Fishmongers' Company. He died of a malignant fever on 23 Oct. 1556, and was buried with great magnificence on the 30th at the church of St. Michael Bassishaw, in which parish he lived (Machyn, Diary, pp. 116-17). Gresham married, first, Mary, daughter of Thomas Ipswell, by whom he had eleven children, and, secondly, Catharine Sampson, widow of Edward Dormer of Fulham. A descendant, Marmaduke Gresham, was made a baronet in 1660, but the title became extinct in 1801, and the family estate at Titsey, Surrey, passed to William Leveson-Gower, a grandson of the last baronet, to whose representatives it still belongs.
Last Modified 14 Jul 2016Created 14 May 2022 by Tim Powys-Lybbe
Re-created by Tim Powys-Lybbe on 14 May 20220