Henry Burney

Henry Burney ( February 27, 1792 -  March 4, 1845 at sea) was a British traveling salesman and diplomat on behalf of the British East India Company . He was a nephew of the English writer Fanny Burney (1752-1840).

Burney joined the British East India Company in 1807 and took part in the 1st Anglo-Burmese War . In 1818 he was appointed lieutenant and adjutant of the 20th Bengali Regiment. He later worked as an agent for the British East India Company. He was appointed ambassador (emissary) for Siam in 1825 and came to Siam in 1826 , where he met King Rama III. concluded a trade agreement (today called the Burney Agreement ), which had a positive effect on the further development of the regional merchants and on trade between Siam and Europe. Previously, he had already led the negotiations on the border between Siam and British-occupied Burma , which were concluded by mutual agreement. Only the exact course of the border at the Three Pagoda Pass ( Kanchanaburi Province ) was and remained controversial for a long time.

Burney became envoy to the court of Ava in Burma in 1829 and a lieutenant colonel in the Bengali army in 1834 .

Burney collected material on Burma and Siam, which he made available to England. He was married to Janet Bannerman (1799-1865) since 1818, with whom he had 13 children. His uncle, John Alexander Bannerman , was the governor of Penang .

Henry Burney died at sea on March 4, 1845. He is buried in the Mission Burial Ground cemetery, Park Street, in Calcutta .

literature

• DGE Hall : Henry Burney: a political biography . London: Oxford Univ. Pr. 1974. ISBN 9780197135839 .