George Bull Boothsby Burland was born on May 24, 1828, or 1829, in Loggan, Wexford County, Ireland.

He was a Montreal businessman and philanthropist. He was educated in England by private teachers. In the 1840s, he moved to Canada with his family. In 1844, he joined the Hamilton Gazette, a property owned by his uncle, who also worked there as a publisher. He moved to Montreal around 1848 and worked with engraver and printer George H. Matthews. In 1864, he joined forces with George Lafricain, Nathaniel Barber and George Bishop to buy Matthews' company and they found the Burland-Lafricain & Company, specializing in lithography. A few years later, the company merged with its main rival, William Cumming Smillie's company. It became the British American Bank Note Company, whose business consisted of printing postage stamps, bank bills, tax stamps, bonds, and stock certificates. Burland served as Vice-President of the company from 1866, before becoming President and General Manager from 1881 until his death. In the 1870s and the 1880s, he also ran a printing company that printed books and periodicals such as the Canadian Illustrated News. In addition to his commercial activities, he was interested in public health. In 1902, he became President of the Protestant Hospital for the Insane in Verdun and one of the founding members of the Anti-Tuberculosis League of Montreal.

In 1858, he married Clarissa Healy Cochrane (1829–1890). In 1894, he married Amelia Elizabeth Haines (1845–1905) and in 1906, he married Hildegarde Florence Beard (1870–1928). He died on May 22, 1907, in Los Angeles, California and is buried in Montreal, Quebec.