Keith Batten served as the chief surgeon and hospital warden of the St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital for a decade between 1969 to 1979, and later as their hospitaller between 1989 and 1992. He oversaw many of the significant occasions in the history of the hospital and left a tremendous impact on the region through his service. Keith's father, Edward Leslie Warner Batten, owned a business in the Bear Flat area of Bath. His mother Beatrice Lucy Batten (née Mullett) was a teacher at Duke Street School. Keith enjoyed a happy childhood, growing up in Bath. After attending a couple of private schools, he became a boarder at Monkton Combe Junior School and then continued on into the senior school. Whilst at the senior school he took up rowing and was in the first eight. Rowing continued to be an interest in his life and he often went to Henley Royal Regatta. Anxious to do his part for the Second World War, he opted to do his first MB at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School and left Monkton in 1942. Barts pre-clinical departments were evacuated to Cambridge because of the London bombings. He lived at Queens' College for his first year and then moved into digs. It was whilst in Cambridge that he met Patricia Margaret Poyner Wall, who was at Bedford College, having also been evacuated to Cambridge. They met at a tea at St Paul's Vicarage and were involved with the Cambridge Inter Collegiate Christian Union. Keith and Pat were married in July 1949, after Keith had done a couple of house jobs, but prior to conscription. Following various postings to Tidworth Military Hospital, Bicester Command Ordnance Depot and finally as a senior medical officer of the Devizes Garrison, Keith left the Army and was accepted into the Colonial Service for a post in the Uganda Medical Service. He took a course for nine months at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he obtained the diploma in tropical medicine and in April 1952 sailed on the *Kenya Castle* to Mombasa. After a two-day train journey to Kampala, he arrived to take up a post for six months to work at Mengo Hospital. Keith and the family then moved to Mubende, where he had been posted as district medical officer. He was working extremely hard, often more than 12 hours day running the hospital, operating, touring and holding clinics and administering the hospital and dispensaries and the public health staff. After three years in Mubende he moved to Soroti to be district medical officer in the Teso sub region for four years, where among other things he treated patients with leprosy. The local view of the disease was that it was either sent by spirits or caused by eating fish. The fishermen around Lake Kyoga lived in slum conditions around the shore gathered into small villages. They had a higher incidence of leprosy than the general population who lived in family groups surrounded by their own areas of cultivation and overcrowding was less. When Keith left four years later to start a career in ophthalmology they had over 8,000 lepers under treatment. What really made the African local administration sit up and take notice was when the children with leprosy who attended the school at the leprosy centre won the district school sports. It brought home to the councillors that loss of fingers and toes was no longer an inevitable consequence of the disease and that people could be cured and lead normal healthy lives. He left Soroti to pursue a career in ophthalmology. He moved to Kampala and worked as number two in the eye department at Mulago Hospital and then went back to the UK to study at Moorfields. Following his diploma in ophthalmology, he worked as a registrar in the eye department. The clinics were huge, the operating lists long and the work heavy. When Uganda was granted independence, Keith returned to the UK and re-joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, where he had an enjoyable tour of duty in Germany, mainly working at the British Military Hospital in Rinteln. He also worked at Millbank and Aldershot. In 1966, he was seconded from the Army to the St John Eye Hospital, which he found very interesting and rewarding. Aldershot seemed tame after his year in Jerusalem and so when Sir Stewart Duke-Elder invited him to apply for the post of warden and chief surgeon of the St John Eye Hospital he jumped at the chance. In 1969, he returned to Jerusalem for ten happy, exciting and rewarding years. He enjoyed meeting many interesting people during his time in Jerusalem: patients, people working in the community and some very well known people. He was delighted to meet Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who visited the hospital in 1975, and also Margaret Thatcher. No two days were the same at the hospital. In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the hospital's outpatient clinic saw 510 patients in one day seen by three doctors - one of the busiest days ever recorded there. In 1976, he received a CBE for medical service to the community in Jerusalem. Returning to the UK, Keith took up a consultant post with the Ministry of Defence at RAF Wroughton and worked there for ten years. He also worked for a few weeks in an eye camp in Bihar in India, where he operated on a large number of cataracts. He visited Cyprus many times whilst working at Wroughton to hold clinics and run operating sessions. On retirement, he took a consultant post at the Riyadh Military Hospital for a few months. He led a full life, loved people and would do all he could to help humanity. Keith's Christian faith was central to his day to day living and the church played an important part in his life. He enjoyed his time as churchwarden in Kampala, London and in Jerusalem. He died peacefully at home on 18 October 2016 after a long illness, bravely borne, surrounded by his family. He was 89. He was survived by his wife, Pat, and two daughters Ann and Jane, six grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.