George Hugh Bourne (8 November 1840 – 2 December 1925) was a hymnodist, schoolmaster and warden, chaplain to the Bishop of Bloemfontein, and ultimately on the staff of Salisbury Cathedral as Sub-dean and Prebendary.
Taking Holy Orders in 1863, he served as Assistant Curate of Sandford-on-Thames, 1863 to 1865.
Subsequently Bourne was Head Master of St. Andrew’s Chardstock, 1866 to 1874 and afterwards Warden of St. Edmund’s, Salisbury, 1874 to 1885.
It was originally part of a set of Seven Post-Communion Hymns (1874), published privately for St. 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 Hymns Ancient and Modern.
It was, in turn, assigned a more central place among Communion Hymns in subsequent editions and revisions of that prominent Anglican hymnal.