Macfarlane wrote historical novels and biographies of Thomas Gresham (1847), the Duke of Marlborough (1852), the Duke of Wellington (1853, 1877, 1886), and Napoleon I (1852, 1879, 1880, 1886).
Gresham County was named in honour of the London merchant, Sir Thomas Gresham (1519–1579).
The village is also the ancestral home of the famous Norfolk family of Gresham, whose members included Sir John Gresham, founder of Gresham's School, and Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of Gresham College and the Royal Exchange.
Around 1612, it appears that Sir Thomas Gresham owned some of the land, having received it as a gift from Queen Elizabeth I.
This form of debasement in Tudor England led to the formulation of Gresham's Law, so named after Sir Thomas Gresham.
However the more popular name of Gresham Ship was introduced when the guns on board the vessel revealed a grasshopper insignia, which was the motif made by Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of the Royal Exchange.
Thomas Jefferson | Thomas Edison | Thomas | Thomas Hardy | Thomas Mann | Thomas Aquinas | Clarence Thomas | Thomas Gainsborough | Dylan Thomas | Thomas Pynchon | St. Thomas | Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands | Thomas Carlyle | Thomas the Tank Engine | Thomas Moore | Thomas Cromwell | Thomas Becket | Thomas the Apostle | Thomas Merton | Thomas Tallis | Thomas Paine | Roy Thomas | Thomas Telford | Thomas More | Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford | Ryan Thomas | C. Thomas Howell | Thomas Kean | Thomas Gage | Thomas Eakins |