Francis Edward Burbury was the eldest son of Alfred Burbury and his wife Maria, née Abbott. He was born in Hobart in 1866, and attended Hobart High School, where he received a prize for first in Mathematics in 1881. This is signed by R.D. Poulett Harris M.A., Rector.
He married Ada Cecilia Cleaver, and established a tailoring business in Launceston, where he made his home at Trevallyn, on the edge of Cataract Gorge. Here he had two conservatories, one heated, and extensive gardens. Although he specialised in chrysanthemums, he imported tulip bulbs from Holland in the early 1900s. Later he had a large cacti collection which was given to the city park, and he had close links with Mr W. McGowan snr, Curator of Parks and Gardens. He printed privately a monograph on endemic plants of Tasmania.
A sometime member of the Tasmanian Fruit Board, he was also President of the Launceston Horticultural Society, and the Launceston Chess Club, which held evenings every Monday for many years. In addition he was president of the Launceston Microscopical Club, and owned extensive equipment, including several microscopes, two microtomes, and a complex system for infusing dyes into animal tissue before resection. In the early days he mounted pathology specimens for an old school friend, Dr George Clemons. He had a great interest in diatoms, tutored B.Sc. candidates doing a part-time degree from Launceston, and had considerable liaison with Mr Weindorfer at Cradle Mountain, and H.H. Scott at the Launceston Museum.
F.E. Burbury was the owner of the third car to come to Launceston - a Cadillac. Subsequently he bought an Argyle, then a Delaunay Belleville.
A talented flautist, he is said to have had the largest collection of flute music in Australia. He was a friend of John Lemmone, and held musical evenings for chamber music every Sunday night. He accompanied Madame Amy Sherwin, the "Tasmanian Nightingale", sponsored several young instrumentalists, and broadcast on the ABC on two occasions.
Besides his musical, horticultural and scientific interests, he had his own dark-room and made lantern slides, many of which are still intact, for use with his lantern (an arc light). He made many microscopic slides into lantern slides, and together with a pharmacist named Lithgow imported some of the earliest full-plate colour slides.
A man of few words on the social scene, F.E. Burbury used every minute of the day in his zest for scientific knowledge; he was not religious, but a tremendously disciplined man. Heaven knows how he found time or inclination for tailoring!
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