Windus worked in Liverpool, where he was elected a member of the Liverpool Academy in 1848. In 1850 he saw a painting by Millais at the Royal Academy in London and joined the cause of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His first important work was Burd Helen, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856. The harsh criticism of John Ruskin so discouraged Windus that he stopped painting in 1859 and no longer exhibited his work.