Francis Masina was born in Bombay on 1 February 1909, the son of Hormasji Manekji Masina, FRCS, a famous surgeon in India and the first Parsee to obtain the English FRCS. Francis was the second of four children, all of whom graduated from Cambridge University and obtained English medical qualifications. The family bought a house in Cambridge for the education of the children and Francis attended the Leys School from 1923 to 1928, where he was captain of rugby and hockey and played in the cricket XI. He passed the Natural Sciences Tripos at Emmanuel College and was awarded a Blue for hockey. He qualified at Bart's and held appointments there, at the National Hospital, University College Hospital, the Miller Hospital (under Cecil Joll) and at the Wingfield Hospital, Oxford (under Professors Seddon and Trueta). After the second world war he specialized in urology. He was the Prophit Scholar of the RCS from 1947 to 1952, based at the Middlesex, St Peter's and All Saints Hospitals, under the aegis of Sir Eric Riches, and was awarded the Jacksonian Prize in 1949 for his essay on malignant disease of the bladder. He was appointed surgeon to the Northern Hospital, Sheffield, and the Beckett Hospital, Barnsley, where he worked until his retirement. His life's work is embodied in the paper which he wrote for the *British Journal of Surgery* in 1965, entitled 'Segmental resection for tumours of the urinary bladder'. He will be remembered as a dedicated and skilled surgeon, a man of exceptional courtesy, highly intelligent and thoughtful, and with strong religious convictions and the highest ethical standards. He died on 4 March 1991 at his home in Oxford, survived by his wife Edie and by his sister, Dr Meheru Masina.