Parr, headmaster of Norwich grammar school took him to Cambridge, and spoke of him as a masterly writer, a profound thinker, and an intimate friend. When his health failed, and he was retiring on a property of £60 a year, Isaac Mann, Bishop of Cork, who was visiting Norwich offered him a sinecure preferment of £300 a year if he chose to conform; Bourn declined. He was unable to finish his monumental History of the Hebrews. His last collection of sermons published in 1777 were comprising Fifty Sermons on Various Subjects, Critical, Philosophical and Moral. Bourn died at Norwich on 24 September 1796, and was buried on 27 September in the graveyard of the Octagon Chapel. Late in life he married, but left no family. References Bibliography The Rise, Progress, Corruption, and Declension of the Christian Religion, sermon, Manchester, 12 May 1752). A Letter to the Rev. Samuel Chandler, D.D., concerning the Christian Doctrine of Future Punishment, 1759 Discourses on the Parables of our Saviour (1764) Fifty Sermons on Various Subjects, Critical, Philosophical and Moral (1777) Joshua Toulmin, Memoirs of the Rev Samuel Bourn (1808) W Field, Memoirs of the life, writings and opinions the Rev Samuel Parr, 2 vols(1828) John Taylor and Edward Taylor, History of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich (1848) 1714 births 1796 deaths English Dissenters People educated at Stand Grammar School Alumni of the University of Glasgow