Thomas Andrewes

Sir Thomas Andrewes (died 1659) was a London financier who supported the parliamentary cause during the English Civil Wars, and sat as a commissioner at the High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I. During the Third English Civil War, as Lord Mayor of London, he made sure that there was no trouble in London. During the Interregnum he supported Oliver Cromwell, and was knighted by him in 1657. Many sources confuse him with another Thomas Andrewes, who had a more prominent role in the British East India Company and was a contemporary of the London politician; this other Andrewes was still alive in 1660.

In the 1620s Andrewes followed the lead of his father Robert and traded with the Plymouth Colony. During the 1630s he traded with the New England colonies, and as a member of the guild of the Leathersellers' Company, ran a successful wholesale linen drapery business at the White Lion, Fish Street Hill. By the end of the decade he had been the master of the guild (from 1638 to 1639), and had made enough money to be become an undersharer holder in a syndicate that farmed customs (a speculative venture where the syndicate paid the Crown a fixed sum against the hope of collecting a larger sum from those who owed custom revenue to the Crown).

Andrewes was a devout Puritan who in the late 1630s followed Sydrach Simpson to Rotterdam to join his congregation. When Simpson first returned to London his congregation met at Andrewes' house.

During the 1640s Andrewes continued to develop his businesses linked to foreign trade. He was involved in trade in the Caribbean, and with Maurice Thompson and Samuel Moyer he financed trading ventures with west Africa.

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