Basil Bourchier was born at Steeple Morden, Cambridgeshire, on 13 February 1881, the second son of the vicar of that parish, the Reverend Walter Bourchier, Fellow of New College, Oxford. He was educated at Bloxham School (St Mary's Lodge Preparatory), Merchant Taylors' School (1892-99), and Queens' College, Cambridge (BA 1903, MA 1906). He was ordained deacon in 1904, priest in 1905, and served in in the parish of Hebden Bridge until 1908, followed by a year at St Anne's Soho. In 1909 he was appointed London Diocesan Home Missioner of St Jude-on-the-Hill, becoming the first vicar when the church was consecrated and the new parish created in 1911.
Rev Basil Graham Bourchier was a loyal servant to St Jude's and a popular figure, gathering crowds from all around London to see him preach.
In the middle of his term as Vicar the First World War broke out he volunteered as chaplain for the Red Cross unit in Belguim. They were captured by German forces who insisted that Bourchier was a spy and he was sentenced to death but was reprieved and released from being a prisoner of war in 1916.
Bourchier was known to speak up for non-church matters, such as the rights and protection of animals, attacking those who wore fur and advocating vegetarianism long before it entered the mainstream.
See also:
Alan Walker A Totally Preposterous Parson: Evelyn Waugh and Basil Bourchier (2016)
http://goo.gl/qpKQza
