Burd was educated at
Clifton College under Dr. Percival and attended
Balliol College, Oxford. He received his
B.A. in 1885 and his
M.A. in 1888. He spent a year travelling as a tutor to
Lord Acton's son and in 1886 joined the teaching staff of
Repton School where he stayed until he retired in 1923, becoming the Classical Sixth Form master. He stocked, almost from scratch, the school library there, making it one of the best in the country, Burd remained an active historical scholar throughout his teaching career. He was a Fellow of the
Royal Historical Society and he produced a new edited edition of Machiavelli's
Il Principe (
The Prince) (1891) which was highly praised in
The English Historical Review and described as leaving nothing to be desired. He also wrote the chapter on "Florence and Machiavelli" in Lord Acton's
The Cambridge Modern History (Volume 1, 1902). ==Hobbies==