Bernard James Bowden was born in 1927 at Mt Albert, Auckland, the only son of William and Catherine Bowden. He was educated at Takapuna Grammar School and entered Auckland University as a Sinclair Scholar, graduating BSc in 1948. He spent that year as a junior master at King's College, Auckland, but he then decided to study medicine and in 1949 he entered the Otago Medical School. He graduated MB ChB with distinction in surgery in 1953. He held house surgeon posts at Auckland and Gisborne and then became ophthalmic registrar at Auckland Base Hospital. In 1954 he married Dr Katharine Thomson and in 1957 they came to the United Kingdom where he held the posts of outpatient officer at Moorfields Eye Hospital, senior registrar at the Bristol Eye Hospital and tutor in ophthalmology at the University of Bristol. During this time he obtained the FRCS England and Edinburgh in ophthalmology. He became FRACS in 1961. On returning to New Zealand Bernard Bowden became ophthalmic surgeon to the Northland Hospital Board and held this post for the rest of his life. He possessed unusual abilities and extraordinary vitality so that his accomplishments during his relatively short life were prodigious. He was a skilful surgeon with an exceptional academic background and an acknowledged leader in his speciality. In 1974-1975 he was President of the Ophthalmological Society of New Zealand and for a number of years Examiner in Ophthalmology in the final examination of the FRACS. He was President of the New Zealand Medical Association when he died. Bernard Bowden was widely read, highly articulate and witty, formidable in debate, a lover of discussion and social contact. He was much sought after as a speaker by other disciplines and his clinical presentations were a delight. He was always keenly interested in natural history and was a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club and climbed mountains in his younger days. These interests were shared by his wife. They created a beautiful farm at Matapouri where they grew rare native coastal trees and plants. They visited the Cook Islands annually and performed many operations, especially for cataracts in these remote islands where they made firm friendships with the doctors with whom they stayed. He saw the problems of the children and young people in these distant places and he organised the distribution of books and educational texts to various schools and villages in the Cook group. To his patients, Bernard Bowden was much more than a specialist, for they knew him as a caring, thoughtful friend for whom no expenditure of time or effort on their behalf was too much. He was a great and good man, with a loving wife Katharine and a family of three sons and three daughters. He died on 28 November 1980.