Bernard Whitchurch Howell had a distinguished career at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School winning a number of prizes and scholarships and qualifying in 1912 with the Conjoint Board Diploma and the MB BS London. In the first world war he was Temporary Captain RAMC attached to the special Military Surgical Hospital at Shepherd's Bush, and he later served as surgeon to the British Red Cross Unit in Serbia, and was awarded the Order of St Sava of Serbia. He then established himself in London as an orthopaedic specialist and held appointments as senior surgeon to the Children's Hospital, Hackney; the Brookfield Orthopaedic Hospital and Cheyne Hospital for Children, Chelsea; and orthopaedic surgeon to the Essex County Council, the Southend Hospital, and St Michael's Orthopaedic Hospital, Clacton. He was President of the Orthopaedic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a member of the British Orthopaedic Association. He contributed a number of papers on orthopaedic subjects to various journals. Howell retired to Henley-on-Thames and died on 12 April 1973.