Thomas Sutton

Thomas Sutton (1532 – 12 December 1611) was an English civil servant and businessman, born in Knaith, Lincolnshire.

Dudley was a distant cousin of the earls of Warwick and Leicester, who had amassed a considerable fortune[3] and this marriage more than doubled Sutton's annual rent income.

[2] Sutton bought Howard House from the Earl of Suffolk, which occupied the site of a former Carthusian Monastery on the outskirts of the City of London.

[6] Later in his career, Sutton became one of the chief moneylenders in England, securing loans worth as little as a few shillings and as much as thousands of pounds to everyone from farmers to some of the most prominent courtiers, businesspeople, and politicians of his era, including Lord Burghley, Sir Edward Coke, Sir Percival Willoughby, Lord Compton, and the Earl of Sussex, among others, generally at the standard rate of ten percent per annum.

[2] Sutton left part of his fortune to be invested in establishing an almshouse for 80 impoverished gentlemen, combined with a school for 40 boys, on the site of his house off Charterhouse Square, on the outskirts of the City of London.