Henry Townsend Bourdillon (1913-1991), CMG (1952), was educated at Rugby School, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1937 he was appointed assistant principal at the Colonial Office; he became acting principal in 1940. For a short period during the early 1940s, Bourdillon was lent to the Foreign Office (1942), the Cabinet Office (1943), and the Ministry of Production (1944). He returned to the Colonial Office in 1944 where he later held the posts of assistant secretary (1947-1954) and assistant under-secretary of state (1954-1959). In 1959 he again left the Colonial Office for a short time when he was appointed Deputy UK Commissioner for Singapore; he returned to the Colonial Office in 1961. In 1962, Bourdillon was appointed under-secretary at the Ministry of Education (1962-1964) and in 1964 became assistant under-secretary of state at the Department of Education and Science (1964-1973).
From the guide to the Account by Henry Townsend Bourdillon of his service at the Colonial Office, 1954-1959, (The Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House)
