FURNESS WITHY AND COMPANY LIMITED, a British shipowning and shipbuilding company, dating originally from 1870 and in 1891 registered as Furness Withy and Company, Limited, with a capital of £700,000. The total issued capital at Dec. 1927 was £4,000,000 ordinary shares and I1,500,000 5% preference shares. The shipping companies and kindred busi nesses acquired or controlled include the Houlder group of com panies (comprising Houlder Brothers and Company Ltd., the Houlder Line Ltd., the Empire Transport Company Ltd., the British Empire Steam Navigation Company Ltd.), the Prince Line Ltd., the British and Argentine Steam Navigation Company Ltd., and the Furness Houlder Argentine Lines Ltd., which latter two companies, with the Houlder Line Ltd., operate a fleet of fast refrigerator vessels between South America and Europe. The group of undertakings controlled by Furness Withy and Company Ltd. in 1928 comprised some 4o companies, embracing every phase of the shipping business—insurance, finance, shipbuilding, ship-broking, stevedoring, etc.
The company has chiefly operated cargo liners, but after the acquisition of the Warren Line in 1912 the passenger trade be tween Liverpool, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Boston was developed. With the acquisition of the Quebec Steamship Co.
in 1920 and the Trinidad Line in the same year the company be came interested in the West Indian passenger trade from New York.
In the early days of the World War the company proposed to the Government that they should charter neutral tonnage to supplement British requisitioned ships, for use in essential services. The offer was accepted, and the amount of tonnage chartered and managed by Furness Withy in this manner reached enormous proportions, far in excess of anything that was originally con templated. It is stated with authority that over 500 vessels were chartered for Government account and operated in the Allied cause, the turnover in hire money, etc. running into figures ex ceeding I100,000,00o per annum. Furness Withy owned the first British steamer fitted with triple expansion engines; the first British built sea-going Diesel-engined vessel, and also the first turbine vessel to cross the Atlantic. (L. C. M.)