Paul von Buri
German diplomat (1860-1922)
Paul Friedrich Christian von Buri (1 June 1860 – 7 August 1922) was a German diplomat who served as the Consul-General for Australia and in Shanghai.
Early life and background
Born in Gießen in the Grand Duchy of Hesse on 1 June 1860, von Buri was born into a prominent Hessian noble family, which had been ennobled (granting the title 'von') by the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, Louis VIII, in 1753. His father, Maximilian von Buri (1825–1902), was a jurist who served as a judge of the Reichsgericht from 1879 to 1896 and his great grandfather Ludwig von Buri (1746–1806) was a childhood friend of Goethe. On 14 March 1896 in Leipzig, von Buri married Charlotte von Bomhard (1871–1964), of a prominent Bavarian noble family and daughter of President of the Senate of the Reichsgericht, Ernst von Bomhard. Buri received his education at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, the Universität Straßburg and Leipzig University.
Diplomatic career
Buri started his civil service career in 1881 in the Reichskolonialamt ('Imperial Colonial Office') serving as a councillor and was appointed Resident Commissioner in the Marshall Islands protectorate, as a part of the German New Guinea. Buri carried on the negotiations which resulted in the Tripartite Convention of 1899 which decided the question of the Samoan Islands, dividing the island group between Germany and the United States.
Joining the Imperial Foreign Office in 1886, Buri commenced his diplomatic career abroad as Vice-Consul in the British Protectorate of Zanzibar in 1889. Thereafter he served as German Consul to the Cape Colony in Cape Town and the Transvaal Colony in Pretoria. In 1895 he was appointed a counsellor based in the Foreign Office in Berlin.
“Paul von Buri” enters the record as german diplomat (1860-1922). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Paul, Buri and German can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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