Born 30 October 1857 at Penyfai, Bridgend, Glamorgan the fifth of the six sons and tenth of the twelve children of Griffith Powell, farmer, and Ann Jenkins, his wife. He was educated privately at Bridgend and at Mumbles near Swansea, and took his medical training at the Westminster Hospital. He won the Treasurer's exhibition in 1884 and was President's scholar in 1885. He served as senior house surgeon, senior house physician, demonstrator of anatomy, and surgical registrar. After a period of postgraduate study in Paris he specialized in genitourinary surgery and was for seven years chief clinical assistant at St Peter's Hospital for Stone. He was also surgeon to the Westminster General Dispensary. Powell was an honorary member of the American Urological Association. He practised at 28 Devonshire Place, W1, and lived at Wimbledon. During the heavy bombing of London in 1940-41 he moved to 4 Newton Villas, Porthcawl, Glamorgan, where he died on 2 July 1944, aged 86. He never married. Powell's brothers and sisters all lived long: one lived to be 92 and two others past 90. He was survived by one sister, Mrs Lloyd, a year younger than himself. Publications: Operative urethroscopy: an improved urethroscope. *Lancet*, 1921, 2, 175. Urethroscopy, in E R T Clarkson's *The Venereal Clinic*, London, Bale, 1922.