The name of Bourne

When Bourn became Bourne

A wide range of English place names derive from their connection with a river or stream and the name Bourne occurs in several localities with many other towns having burn, borne or bourne as an ending such as Ashbourne, Pangbourne and Sittingbourne. Brunne, the original name for a stream that was known here, eventually came to be known as Bourn and after that Bourne when the final "e" was added in the late 19th century. The change was made unofficially by the Post Office to distinguish it from Bourn in Cambridgeshire because there was some confusion between the two places and came as a direct result of the growing popularity of the postal services and the railway age that brought the widespread movement of goods and passengers around the country.

The problem was that many people using the postal services forgot to add the final “e” and confusion became so intense that in the early summer of 1893, a special meeting was convened to decide whether an official change of name was in order because, as one local newspaper reported, “there has from the earliest times been some bewildering uncertainty as to the orthography”. The meeting was held at the Town Hall on Monday 5th June with Alderman William Wherry presiding. He explained that the postal and railway authorities had been put to considerable trouble and the public to much loss and inconvenience in consequence of the dual forms of Bourn and Bourne, particularly since Bourn in Cambridgeshire had recently been made a telegraph station and all letters or telegrams generally reached there first and only arrived in Lincolnshire by a circuitous route a day or two later. Attempts had been made to avoid such confusion by adding an “e” to Bourne or “Lincs” after the address but if either were omitted, then the businesses involved were put to considerable expense in telegraphing to identify their lost messages.

The meeting provoked a lively discussion among townspeople, mainly those with business interests. Mr Robert Mills of the mineral water manufacturers in the Market Place, said that during the past 40 years, he had found that letters addressed with the final “e” never failed to be delivered but those with just the name Bourn invariably went to Cambridge and he suggested that history was on the side of Bourne being spelled with a final “e”. He told the meeting that the celebrated English antiquarian John Leyland was empathic because in his itinerary he stated: “Bourne is a bubbling stream; Bourn is a running stream.” It would therefore be found that where the bubbling source of the stream existed, the final “e” was characteristic, as in Bournemouth and Bourn in Cambridgeshire had simply a little running stream and not the source. There had also been other instances in which Leyland’s distinction had been confirmed. “Bourne was correct”, he said, “deriving its name from the bubbling sources of the Bourne Eau at St Peter’s Pool in Hereward’s castle meadow.”

Mr Thomas Mawby of South Street said that apart from the historical connection, it was also a matter of convenience. “If the ‘e’ were added, letters would come direct”, he said. Mr William Finlay, manager of the Stamford, Spalding and Boston Banking Company in North Street, said that the spelling of the name of the town should not be made subservient to the convenience of a little village in Cambridgeshire. “The matter should not be arbitrarily decided to suit the convenience of the General Post Office”, he said. "Much of the trouble we have had has no doubt been caused by official carelessness. In the case of my business, the proposed change would involve the altering of private and official documents for the past fifty years.” Councillor Henry Goodyear, a farmer in the Austerby, argued that the final “e” had been added by the postal authorities years ago without consulting the inhabitants of the town. “We are compelled to adopt the alteration through the postal authorities riding rough shod over the former custom”, he said.

The Vicar, the Rev Hugh Mansfield, defended the use of the “e”. He said that the town had a very ancient and honourable history and to drop it would be to detach it from its famous associations. He went on: “In the works of Mannynge of Bourne, known in literature as Robert of Brunne, the father of modern English, the name was invariably spelt with the final ‘e’. In the parish registers, both methods of spelling are found. The final ‘e’ forms a link with the past. Reasoning from analogy, Bourne is correct, e g Eastbourne. From a practical point of view, it would be best to retain the ‘e’ as it differentiates us from the little village in Cambridgeshire. The commercial argument is answerable. In a telegram, they can always save a halfpenny by writing ‘Bourne’ instead of ‘Bourn, Lincs’. From an aesthetic standpoint, Bourn is indefensible. It looks stumpy, stunted, ugly – something like a dog with his tail cropped off. The ‘e’ gives it an artistic finish. Moreover, it greatly simplifies the work of the letter sorters at the GPO.”

The vicar finished his impressive speech by proposing to the meeting: “That the final ‘e’ be retained in the spelling of the name Bourne” and this was seconded by Mr Mawby. In his summing up, Alderman Wherry said that lawyers had assured him that legal documents would not be affected by the change because they were invariably written “Bourn in the County of Lincoln”. He also said that during the previous week, his firm had lost an important order through the delay in the delivery of letters as a result of the “e” being omitted from Bourne in the address. He had also been informed by the postmaster Mr John Pearce that out of 711 letters received one morning recently, the addresses on 637 of them were spelled Bourne.

There was no amendment to the vicar’s proposal that was finally adopted by the meeting and it was agreed to notify both the GPO and the railway authorities immediately. The Stamford Mercury used the new form in its issue of June 9th and the railway companies and the post office fell into line immediately afterwards and soon everyone else had followed suit.