He taught English at the School of Economics in Istanbul, and spent most of his life in Turkey.
Burr was a noted specialist of earwigs (Dermaptera) and crickets and grasshoppers (Orthoptera).
[3][4] He was the first to classify earwigs on the basis of copulatory organs,[5] and the diversity and biology of the earwigs of Sri Lanka is well studied due to major contributions by Burr in 1901.
[6] He also met and befriended the White émigré Paul Nazaroff, whose works he translated from Russian into English (including Hunted through Central Asia).
[7] He married Clara Millicent Goode in 1903 and they had four daughters, Gabrille Ruth Millicent, Rowena Frances, Yolanda Elizabeth and another.