Henry Burney - Career

Career

In 1807 Burney joined the East India Company. In 1818, the year of his marriage to Janet Bannerman, he was appointed lieutenant and adjutant of the 20th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, Penang's acting town-major and military secretary to Governor Bannerman. Later he worked as an agent of the East India Company, collecting material about Burma and Siam, which he made available to England, while participating in the First Anglo–Burmese War (1823–1826). After his 1825 appointment as political emissary to Siam he met King Rama III there the following year, concluding the Burney Treaty and a commercial contract to stimulate development of regional trade between Siam and Europe. Having negotiated a mutually agreed border between Siam and British-occupied Burma, only the exact course of the border at Three Pagodas Pass in Kanchanaburi remained in dispute. From 1829 Burney was the British resident envoy to King Bagyidaw's court at Ava in Burma where he successfully negotiated the return of the Kabaw Valley from Manipur to Burma. By 1834 he had risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Bengal army.