Burnell was an architect, born in Herne Hill as son of Henry Burnell (1784–1864) and his wife Sarah. He was originally apprenticed to his father, called a ‘mason’ on the indenture of March 1840. In 1841 and 1842 he did drawings for alterations to the dining room of Londonderry House, London, and he also appears to have been a late-life pupil in Paris of Louis-Hippolyte Lebas (1782–1867). He exhibited architectural drawings at the Royal Academy 1845–1847, from 20 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, and was still living there at the 1881 census. He and his wife Mary Anne (née Noyes, c.1829–1895) had five daughters and a son (Henry Noyes Burnell, who was their third child), all born in Chelsea between 1860 and 1870. Maude (1860–1944) and Margaret (the third daughter, 1865–1940) married two brothers of the Mead family, who were also living in Cheyne Walk in 1881; respectively, George Edward Mead in 1885 and Arthur Charles Mead (a solicitor) in 1900.