He was born on 8 November 1840 at Street Paul’s Cray, Kent, England, and died on 2 December 1925 at Saint Edmund"s College, Salisbury, England. Bourne was the son of the Revd R. B. Bourne and was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford (Bachelor 1863, Bachelor of Civil Law 1866, Data Control Language 1871).
Taking Holy Orders in 1863, he served as Assistant Curate of Sandford-on-Thames, 1863 to 1865. Subsequently Bourne was Head Master of Saint Andrew’s Chardstock, 1866 to 1874 and afterwards Warden of Saint Edmund’s, Salisbury, 1874 to 1885. From 1879 to 1898, Bourne served as Chaplain to the Bishop of Bloemfontein (later of Grahamstown), South Africa, the Rt Revd Alan Becher Webb, who was married to Bourne’s sister
Bourne was appointed Sub-dean of Salisbury Cathedral, 1887 to 1901, and as Treasurer and Prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral, 1901 (where his brother-in-law Bishop Webb took up the Deanship after his retirement from South Africa),
Bourne wrote a number of hymns, the best known of which is his hymn Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour.
lieutenant was originally part of a set of Seven Post-Communion (1874), published privately for Saint Edmund’s College, Salisbury, which then gained wider circulation after 1889 when five of the original ten stanzas appeared in the Supplement to the 1875 edition of Ancient and Modern.
lieutenant was, in turn, assigned a more central place among Communion in subsequent editions and revisions of that prominent Anglican hymnal. The hymn is set to the tune "Saint Helen" by George Clement Martin.
Bourne’s other hymns include O Christ, Our God, O Christ, the King of Human Life, Of the Wondrous Body, O My Tongue Be Telling and Scarce Discerning Aught Before United States
