Thomas Stanley (Royal Mint)

Thomas Stanley (died 15 December 1571) was a goldsmith and officer of the Royal Mint in Tudor England. Stanley rose to the rank of Under-Treasurer of the Mint at the Tower of London in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Thomas Stanley was the third son of Thomas Stanley, of Dalgarth, Cumberland, and his wife Margaret, daughter of John Fleming. He married Joyce, daughter of John Barrett, of Aveley, Essex, and widow of Sir James Wilford (or Mytford), Knight. Their only daughter, Mary, married Sir Edward Herbert (c. 1542–1595), second son of the Earl of Pembroke. Her son William Herbert, 1st Baron Powis (1572–1655) was Lord High Steward to Elizabeth I and is a candidate for "Mr WH", the dedicatee of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Stanley was appointed as one of the Assay Masters of the Mint in March 1545, following a restructuring and expansion of the Royal Mint under Henry VIII associated with a major effort to prop up the economy by debasing the currency. The policy of debasement was continued by Lord Protector Somerset early in the reign of Henry's son, Edward VI, but after Somerset's fall the Earl of Warwick implemented a plan to reform the currency in an attempt to control rampant inflation. Stanley was one of a consortium of Mint officials appointed in 1551 to advise the government on new standards for the coinage. Another general restructuring of the Mint in the spring of 1552 resulted in the appointment of Thomas Egerton as Under-Treasurer and Stanley's promotion to Comptroller.

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