Herbert K Bourne was born in Staffordshire in 1825, into an artistic family. He soon showed artistic talents himself as well, as becomes clear from an early 1840s census which had him down as 'historical line engraver'. He had taken local art classes but later moved to London, where his engraving career soon took flight. Bourne exhibited at the Royal Academy in London from 1859 to 1885, and at the Suffolk Street gallery in London from 1831 to 1885.