Born at Ilminster, 6 August 1877, third son of Henry Batten, master tailor, and Ann Summers, his wife. He was educated at Ilminster Grammar School and Bristol University, and qualified as a pharmacist in 1894. While earning his living in this profession he attended St Mary's Hospital Medical School, and took the Conjoint diplomas in 1904. He held house appointments at St Mary's, and served as surgical registrar at Wigan Royal Infirmary and at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. In 1914 he was appointed to the staff of the Central London Sick Asylum in Cleveland Street, and then became resident medical officer under Evan Laming Evans, FRCS, at the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases. He took the Fellowship in June 1914. From 1915 to 1919 he served in the RAMC as a surgical specialist, and had the unpleasant experience of being torpedoed at sea. He was appointed orthopaedic surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital in 1920, when Sir H A Thomas Fairbank, FRCS, migrated to King's College Hospital. He was also appointed orthopaedic surgeon to the Freemasons Hospital, Fulham Road, and its successor the Royal Masonic Hospital, Ravenscourt Park, and was himself eminent in freemasonry. He retired in 1937, and was elected a consulting surgeon to both these hospitals. He was also a consultant orthopaedist at the Kent County Hospital, Dartford, the Royal Sea-bathing Hospital, Margate, the London Foot Hospital, and the St Marylebone and Western General Dispensary. Batten practised many original methods, but published very few of them. He was a just critic of his own and other work, modest and reserved; but kind, helpful, and loyal to his pupils and assistants. Batten married in 1917 Margaret Elizabeth Evans, who survived him with their son, Henry Batten, MB BCh Cambridge. He died at his home 17 Ravenscourt Square, London, W6 on 8 January 1950, aged 72. Publication:- The treatment of drop-wrist by tendon transplantation [for musculospinal paralysis]. *Med Press and Circ*. 1919, 158, 333.