Sir Robert Howard Furness (1880–1959) was a British Chief Justice of Barbados, after which he became Chief Justice of Jamaica from April 1936.[1]
He was the son of Robert Pratt Furness of Preston, Lancashire, a business agent for Pearson & Knowles Ltd., and his wife Margaret Rue, born in 1880. He was educated at King William's College, becoming a solicitor. He worked for Rawsthorn, Ambler & Booth, in Preston.[2][3][4][5]
Furness moved to British Honduras (now Belize) to practice in 1906.[4] He took the post of Registrar-General there in 1913.[6][7] He served in World War I, commanding the 1st British Honduras War Contingent of 129 Belizean men who sailed for Europe on HMT Verdala on 4 November 1915; and then as an officer in the British West Indies Regiment, in France and Egypt.[2][4][8] He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1919.[9]
Furness then held legal posts in Tanganyika and Trinidad and Tobago, where he was Solicitor-General. He was Chief Justice in Barbados from 1926 to 1936; then Chief Justice in Jamaica. He was knighted in 1929.[2][10] He died in the Mandeville Nursing Home on 1 March 1959.[11]
Furness married in 1917 Helen Frances Elizabeth Smyth, daughter of Arthur Smyth of Garvagh, Royal Marine Light Infantry. They had one daughter.[2]
Charles Clifford Furness DSO (born 1877) was his brother.[12]