Robert Howard Furness Explained
Sir Robert Howard Furness (1880–1959) was a British Chief Justice of Barbados, after which he became Chief Justice of Jamaica from April 1936.
Life
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.[1] [2] [3] [4]
Furness moved to British Honduras (now Belize) to practice in 1906.[3] He took the post of Registrar-General there in 1913.[5] [6] 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.[1] [3] [7] He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1919.[8]
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.[1] [9] He died in the Mandeville Nursing Home on 1 March 1959.[10]
Family
Furness married in 1917 Helen Frances Elizabeth Smyth, daughter of Arthur Smyth of Garvagh, Royal Marine Light Infantry. They had one daughter.[1]
Charles Clifford Furness DSO (born 1877) was his brother.[11]
External links
Notes and References
- Book: Kelly's. Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes. 1943. Kelly's Directories.. 1685.
- Web site: King William's College Register, 1833-1904 . 277 . J. Maclehose . English . 1905.
- News: Kingston Gleaner Newspaper Archives, Jul 1, 1929, p. 16 . 16 . newspaperarchive.com . 1 July 1929 . en.
- Book: World Biography . 1948 . Institute for Research in Biography . 1892 . en.
- Book: Government . Great Britain . Report by His Britannic Majesty's Government to the Council of the League of Nations on the administration of the British sphere of Togoland . 1938 . 19 . en.
- Web site: Price . E. D. . Palmer . William . Hall . Hammond . Ingram . Thomas Allan . Hazell's annual ... a cyclopædic record of men and topics of the day .. . 145 . London : Hazell, Watson & Viney, ld.[sic] [etc.]; H. Frowde, Oxford University press [etc.] . 1917.
- Book: Bisher . Jamie . The Intelligence War in Latin America, 1914-1922 . 2016 . McFarland . 9781476620268 . 62 . en.
- Book: The Law Journal . 1959 . Law journal . 174 . en.
- Book: Teelucksingh . J. . Labour and the Decolonization Struggle in Trinidad and Tobago . 2014 . Springer . 9781137462336 . 218 . en.
- Web site: March 1 . diG Jamaica . 12 June 2018.
- Book: Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage . 1931 . Kelly's Directories . 1630 . en.
