His 40 industrious years as a bishop led some to comment that it would be impossible to write a biography of Cardinal Francis Bourne. Fr Mark Vickers, however, has defied the odds and, after 12 years’ research and writing, has produced a 650-page tome of the man who was Archbishop of Westminster from 1903 to 1935.By the Thames Divided: Cardinal Bourne in Southwark and Westminster, published by Gracewing, refers to the fact that before Westminster, where his time in office is longer than any other, Bourne was Bishop of Southwark (before it was an archdiocese). Some of Bourne’s greatest achievements lay in seminary training and leading a campaign against an ultimately unsuccessful bill proposed by the Liberal Government in 1906 that threatened the existence of Catholic schools.