Joe Magri was a consultant urologist at Oldchurch Hospital, Romford. He was born in Valletta, Malta, on 2 March 1926, the son of Francesca and Tancred Magri. He was educated at the Jesuit College and Malta University, where he qualified in 1949. He then moved to England to specialise in surgery. He was a house surgeon in orthopaedics and accident surgery at the City Hospital, Sheffield, and then a surgical registrar in Barnsley, where, with the help of only an anaesthetist and a house physician, he dealt with all the emergencies that arose in that busy mining town. He went on to become an anatomy demonstrator in Sheffield, passed the primary and final FRCS, and became a surgical registrar in Leicester. He was RSO (senior registrar) at St Peter’s Hospital in 1959 and was appointed consultant urologist, Oldchurch Hospital, Romford, in 1963. There he published a review of partial cystectomy for bladder cancer and a few years later a ‘no-catheter’ technique for prostatectomy. A genial, friendly man, Joe Magri’s many interests included bridge, sailing, skiing and the opera. He attended Covent Garden regularly. He also built his own Gilbern car from a kit. He met his Swedish wife Margareta Johansson while on holiday in Malta, where she was working as a private secretary in an architect’s office. Together they refurbished a house in Mill Hill. They had no children. He died of metastatic carcinoma on 6 April 2005. He is survived by his widow.