Robert Howard Furness

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]

## Life

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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]

## Family

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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]

## References

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1. ^ "No. 34277". The London Gazette. 24 April 1936. p. 2624.
2. ^ a b c d Kelly's (1943). Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes. Kelly's Directories. p. 1685.
3. ^ "King William's College Register, 1833-1904". J. Maclehose. 1905. p. 277.
4. ^ a b c "Kingston Gleaner Newspaper Archives, Jul 1, 1929, p. 16". newspaperarchive.com. 1 July 1929. p. 16.
5. ^ World Biography. Institute for Research in Biography. 1948. p. 1892.
6. ^ Government, Great Britain (1938). Report by His Britannic Majesty's Government to the Council of the League of Nations on the administration of the British sphere of Togoland. p. 19.
7. ^ Price, E. D.; Palmer, William; Hall, Hammond; Ingram, Thomas Allan (1917). "Hazell's annual ... a cyclopædic record of men and topics of the day ." London : Hazell, Watson & Viney, ld.[sic] [etc.]; H. Frowde, Oxford University press [etc.] p. 145.
8. ^ Bisher, Jamie (2016). The Intelligence War in Latin America, 1914-1922. McFarland. p. 62\. ISBN 9781476620268.
9. ^ The Law Journal. Law journal. 1959. p. 174.
10. ^ Teelucksingh, J. (2014). Labour and the Decolonization Struggle in Trinidad and Tobago. Springer. p. 218\. ISBN 9781137462336.
11. ^ "March 1". diG Jamaica. 12 June 2018.
12. ^ Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage. Kelly's Directories. 1931. p. 1630.

## External links

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* World War I in Belize

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