[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.
[2][3][4][5] Furness moved to British Honduras (now Belize) to practice in 1906.
[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.
[9] Furness then held legal posts in Tanganyika and Trinidad and Tobago, where he was Solicitor-General.
[2] Charles Clifford Furness DSO (born 1877) was his brother.