Maurice Jean Marie Burrus (8 March 1882 – 5 December 1959)[1] was an Alsatian tobacco magnate, politician and philatelist.

The family moved to Switzerland after the French government created a monopoly on the manufacture of tobacco products under Napoleonic laws.

[2] He was educated at Dole, in the Collège Stanislas de Paris and later in Hanover where he studied banking and learnt German before returning to Sainte-Croix-aux-Mines where he took over the running of the family tobacco factory.

During World War I his anti-German sentiment was displayed by refusing to supply the German armies with tobacco, an act that got him a prison sentence of eight months and exiled from Alsace where his property was seized and sold.

[1][6] The Burrus collection was connected to the Ponzi scheme run by Dr Paul Singer, manager of the Irish-based Shanahan Stamp Auctions that existed in the 1950s, one of the greatest scandals in philately.