shire, on his death-bed in 1695 recommended Bourn as his successor there. Bourn removed thither in 1695, and though at first not well received by the whole congregation, he declined the inducement of a larger salary offered by the Calne people to tempt him back, and gradually won the love of all his Bolton flock. For him the new meeting-house (licensed 30 Sept. 1696) was built on the ground given by his uncle. He originated, and after a time entirely supported, a charity school for twenty poor children. His stipend was very meagre, though when pleading for the wants of others he was known as 'the best beggar in Bolton.' By will he left 20l. as an additional endowment to the Monday lecture. His constitution broke some time before his death, which occurred on 4 March 1719. On his deathbed, in answer to his friend Jeremiah Aldred (d. 1729), minister of Manton, he emphatically expressed his satisfaction with the non-conformist position he had adopted. His funeral sermon was preached (from 2 Kings ii. 3) by his son Samuel [see below], who had already been appointed to preach a funeral sermon for a member of his father's flock, and discharged the double duty. Brown married the daughter of George Scortwreth, ejected from St. Peter's, Lincoln, and had seven children. His eldest son Joseph died on 17 June 1701 in his twenty-first year; his youngest sons, Daniel and Abraham, had died in infancy in April 1701; his widow survived him several years. Bourn printed nothing, but his son Samuel published: 4 Several Sermons preached by the late Rev. Mr. Samuel Bourn of Bolton, Lane.,' 1722, 8vo (two sets of sermons from 1 John iii. 2, 3, on 'The transforming vision of Christ in the future state,' &c.), adding the funeral sermon, and a brief memoir by William Tong (b. 1662, d. 21 March 1727), and dedicating the volume to a relative, Madam Hacker of Duffield. He speaks of his father as a great preacher, a good pastor, a good scholar, and an honest, upright man. A portrait prefixed to the volume shows a strong countenance; Bourn wears gown and bands, and his flowing hair is confined by a skull-cap.
[Palmer's Nonconf. Memorial (1802), i. 411; Toulmin's Mem. of Rev. Samuel Bourn, 1808 (an oddly arranged storehouse of dissenting biography); March's Hist. Presbyt. and Gen. Bapt. Churches in West of Engl. (1835), pp. 56, 60; Baker's Nonconformity in Bolton, 1854.]
BOURN, SAMUEL, the younger (1689–1754), dissenting minister, second son of Samuel Bourn the elder [q. v], was born in 1689 at Calne, Wiltshire. He was taught classics at Bolton, and trained for the ministry in the Manchester academy of John Chorlton and James Coningham, M.A. His first settlement was at Crook, near Kendal, in 1711, where he gave himself to study. He carried with him his father's theology, but seems to have attained at Manchester the latest development of the nonsubscribing idea, for at his ordination he declined subscription, not from particular scruples, but on general principles; hence many of the neighbouring ministers refused to concur in ordaining him. Toulmin says 'the received standard of orthodoxy' which was proffered to him was the assembly's catechism. In 1719, when the Salters' Hall conference had made the Trinitarian controversy a burning question among dissenters, Bourn, hitherto 'a professed Athanasian,' addressed himself to the perusal of Clarke and Waterland, and accepted the Clarkean scheme. While at Crook, Bourn dedicated a child (probably of baptist parentage) without baptism, according to a form given by Toulmin. In 1720 Bourn succeeded Henry Winder (d. 9 Aug. 1752) at Tunley, near Wigan. He declined in 1725 a call to the neighbouring congregation of Park Lane, but accepted a call (dated 29 Dec. 1727) to the 'new chapel at Chorley.' On 7 May 1731 Bourn was chosen one of the Monday lecturers at Bolton, a post which he held along with his Chorley pastorate. On 19 April 1732 Bourn preached the opening sermon at the New Meeting, which replaced the Lower Meeting, Birmingham, and on 21 and 23 April he was called to be colleague with Thomas Pickard in the joint charge of this congregation and a larger one at Coseley, where he was to reside. He began this ministry on 25 June. He was harassed by John Ward, J.P., of Sedgley Park (M.P. for Newcastle-under-Lyne, afterwards sixth Baron Ward, and first Viscount Dudley and Ward), who sought to compel him to take and maintain a parish apprentice. Bourn twice appealed to the quarter sessions, and pleaded his own cause successfully. Subsequently, on 15 Dec. 1738, Ward and another justice tried to remove him from Sedgley parish to his last legal settlement, on the pretext that he was likely to become chargeable. Toulmin prints his very spirited reply. After Pickard's death, his colleague was Samuel Blyth, M.D. Bourn had a warm temper, and was not averse to controversy; was in his element in repelling a field-preacher, or attacking quakers in their own meeting-house, and with difficulty was held back by his friend Orton from replying on the spot to the doctrinal confession of a young independent minister, who was being ordained at the New
