Frédéric Guillaume de Pury

De Pury was born on 15 December 1831 in Neuchâtel to Baron Edouard Charles Alexandre de Pury, a member of the Grand Council of Neuchâtel, and his second wife, Julie de Sandoz-Travers.[1] His family had been ennobled by Frederick II of Prussia.[1] De Pury was the granduncle of Roland de Pury.

In 1851 he moved to England to study English and agriculture.[1] On 6 May 1852, de Pury left England for Victoria, Australia.[1][2] He first worked tending cattle on a property in Yering that was owned by Paul de Castella.[1] In 1855 he and Hubert de Castella purchased Dalry, a former out-station of Yering.[1] They were joined in business by de Pury's brother, Samuel, who had recently arrived from Switzerland.[1] In 1858 he sold Dalry and rented land near Darlot Creek to graze sheep and breed horses.[1] In 1860 de Pury purchased land near Lilydale and named it Cooring Yering, planting a vineyard and building a house and wine cellar there.[1] In 1863, along with George Langdon, he purchased nine-hundred acres in Yering from de Castella's creditors, which he named Yeringberg, starting a vineyard there.[1][3] In 1869 he bought out Langdon.[1] Yerinberg was later enlarged to 1,160 acres and produced over 90,922 litres of wine annually.[1] The wine was exported to Europe.[4]

De Pury was a leader of the Swiss community in Lilydale. He became a justice of the peace in 1862 and was a member of the Upper Yarra District Roads Board for twenty-one years.[1] When the Shire of Lillydale was established in 1872, he served as one of its first councilors and later as its president.[1] From 1875 to 1890 he served as an honorary consul for the Swiss Confederation in Melbourne.[1]

A devout Protestant, de Pury supported the construction of an Anglican church in Lilydale.[1] He had an interest in Aboriginal Australians and was an adviser of William Barak.[1][5] In 1881 he served on a government inquiry into the condition of the Aboriginal station at Coranderrk.[1]

On 2 February 1869 he married Adelaide Augusta Ibbotson at St James Cathedral.[1] They had two sons, George Alphonse and Montague Edouard Victor.[1]

He was appointed as a commissioner of the International Exhibition in Melbourne.[1] He died on 11 November 1890 in Lausanne, Switzerland.[1]