The Bourchier family had been large landowners in Yorkshire since the 15th Century. The sitter's father, also called John, heavily influenced by the Grand Tour which he made between 1702 and 1704, had replaced the old family house with an imposing Baroque Mansion, Beningbrough Hall, which was one of the grandest in Yorkshire.
On his father's death in 1736, John Bourchier succeeded him at Beningbrough and two years later married Mildred Roundell (d.1796) the daughter of a wealthy landowner, Richard Roundell of Hutton Wansley. The couple featured prominently in York society and John Bourchier became High Sheriff in 1749.
Like his father, he left behind him a particularly fine architectural monument in Mickelgate House, York, which was completed in 1752.