Benjamin John Fowler was born in 1917 in Peterborough where he attended the King's School before entering Guy's Hospital to qualify in 1941. He was called up for Army service, working as a general duties medical officer with some experience in surgery. While in North Africa he was created Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur for guiding French troops out of a minefield into which they had inadvertently strayed. On demobilization he returned to Guy's as a demonstrator of anatomy and secured the Final FRCS in 1950. He was then surgical registrar at Guy's and senior registrar at Sheffield, Derby and Leicester. In 1962 he was appointed as the only consultant surgeon at Grantham and Kesteven General Hospital until an additional appointment was made in 1972. Sadly, he suffered from renal disease which necessitated dialysis though he continued to work as heretofore. During his spells of dialysis he used his enforced confinement to study the journals, and was regarded by colleagues as an encyclopaedia of current medical opinion. He only reached retiring age a few months before his death. His wife, Shirley, is also a doctor, and her care was materially responsible for his long survival. Peter, his son, is medically qualified and his daughter, Penelope, is a microbiologist. He was survived by them and by his younger daughter, Rosalind, when he died on 27 November 1982.