Adam Batty's (KES 91-98) family are heartbroken to share the news of his sudden death on 12 August 2026. Adam was playing cricket near his home in St Albans, on the night of the eclipse when he collapsed having suffered a sudden and fatal cardiac arrest. 

He is greatly missed by his wife, Helen, and son, Josh, his twin sister, Louise, and brother, Jon, (who both also attended KES alongside Adam), his sisters, Jodie and Anke, his parents, and wider family and friends. Jon wrote and read a poem, which beautifully captures Adam’s life, at his funeral in St Albans in September:

The Final Innings

From Walhampton days to the King Edward’s pitch,
A life lived with colour, articulate, rich.
With a mind built for science at Imperial, too,
And a sharp, wicked wit that would carry him through.
He walked through the shops and the pharma sales game,
Then tech at FourteenFish adding to his name,
A survivor who battled, who conquered the scare,
To settle into the role he loved most: being there.
With Josh, learning together and sharing the fun,
With Helen beside him, his world in one.
He could quote every line from Wayne’s World with ease,
Police Academy laughs, Airplane! jokes in the breeze.
Party-starter and charmer, gregarious, bright,
A man who could turn on the warmest of light.
And then on the boundary, on grass fresh and green,
The sun softly shadowed, a sky rarely seen,
He was playing his cricket, right into the crease,
Before slipping away in a moment of peace.
Forty-five years was too brief for the show,
With so many stories we still had to know.
Yet we’ll think of you laughing, of matches well played,
Of a family cherished, a grand legacy made.
So rest easy, Adam, bat tucked by your side,
Remembered with love, and remembered with pride.