After retirement Bourdillon continued to serve on the Colonial Economic and Development Council. He became treasurer and then chairman of the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association. In 1946, his son, Bernard, who was working in Palestine, was killed in the King David Hotel bombing. He was a director of Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas), and of Barclays Overseas Development Corporation. He died on 6 February 1948 at St Saviour, Jersey, aged 64.