Harry Windsor

Who is Harry Windsor?

Dr. Harry Windsor was an Australian cardiac surgeon at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney for numerous years. In 1968 he carried out the first heart transplant in Australia.

He was mentor to renowned heart surgeon Victor Chang

Harry Windsor performed the first heart transplant operation in Australia in 1968 at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.

Harry Windsor was born on 27 October 1914 in Cork, Ireland, where his mother had gone to be with her relatives at the outbreak of World War I. His father, a Ship's surgeon, had been on his way to Australia when war was announced, so Harry didn’t meet him until he was 16 months old, and he and his mother had made the voyage to Australia. Once here, he spent his childhood between New Farm in Brisbane and Gore in Northern Queensland.

In his memoirs, The Heart of a Surgeon, Harry recounts his first medical memory: Being snugly rugged between my father and groom in the sulky during rounds and being shown the red crosses on the front doors of some houses in Brisbane during the influenza pandemic of 1919.