Winsor Bowsher was a consultant urological surgeon at Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport. He was born on Barton-on-Sea, Hampshire, the son of Graham Walter Bowsher, an art teacher, and Marjorie Wilfred née Munday, who taught public speaking. He was educated at Brockenhurst Grammar School and then Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he won a blue for golf. He did his clinical studies at the Royal London Hospital and was house surgeon to John Blandy, who inspired his interest in urology. He completed his general surgical training at Nottingham and Cardiff, before starting the senior registrar rotation at the Institute of Urology and St Bartholomew’s. He was then a lecturer and senior registrar at the Royal London, where he completed the research for his MChir thesis. In 1990 he was awarded the Shackman and Sir Alexander McCormack travelling fellowships of our college, going to St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, as visiting fellow and later staff consultant. There he carried out innovative laparoscopic surgery and radical prostatectomy for cancer. Shortly after his return he was appointed to the Royal Gwent Hospital in 1993 with Brian Peeling, where he rapidly established a reputation. He set up a trial of radical prostatectomy, published widely, edited *Challenges in prostate cancer* (Malden, MA, Blackwell Science, 2000), and was on the editorial board of the *British Journal of Urology*, *Prostate* and the European Board of Urology *Update* series. He set up a support group for prostate cancer patients called Progress, which was the first of its kind in the UK, and in 1996 was medical adviser to the BBC series *The male survival guide*, which won six BMA gold awards. He was married to Pauline and had three children, Harry, Abigail and Nicholas. A man of great charm and enthusiasm, Winsor was a keen fly fisherman, skier and mountaineer. In his last years he had a brief but successful battle with alcohol, but, having completely recovered, died suddenly from cardiac arrhythmia on 12 May 2004.