Old Scholars will be saddened to hear of the death of Dr Adam Kendon (YG 1952) on 14th September 2022. Born on 4th April 1934, Adam was at Friends' from 1943 to 1952.

Nigel Watt (YG 1953) has been in contact with the Old Scholars with the following testimony.

"Adam was always known as AK at school. He was always an intellectual with a slight air of eccentricity. He loved classical music - and trains. He was a co-founder, with me and Tim Whitmore, of the Society for the Reinvigoration of Unremunerative Branch Lines in the UK (SRUBLUK). He studied first at St.John's College, Cambridge and for his PhD at Balliol College, Oxford."

Nigel Watt also provided this obituary from the funeral service:

"Adam Kendon was a leading authority on the study of gesture but has also published pioneering studies on the organisation of behaviour in face-to-face interaction. In a scholarly career that extends over nearly fifty years, Adam Kendon has published over one hundred articles and several books all of which deal, in various ways, with the role of the body in face-to-face interaction.

He was a co-editor (with Cornelia Muller) of the international journal Gesture that has been published by John Benjamins of Amsterdam since 2001 and was made an Honorary President of the International Society of Gesture Studies in 2005.

His lifelong pursuit of 'what it is to be human and who we are' in a general sense took him to Australia and New Guinea from 1973 through to 1988 when he returned to the USA. At this point he took it upon himself to learn Italian in order to translate the important 19th century treatise on Neapolitan gesture by Andrea de Jorio published in 2000 titled 'Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity' and in turn continuing his work publishing a book titled 'Gesture: Visible Actions and Utterance' in 2004. Of course this took him to Naples and the Island of Procida, Italy where he spent much time, although his residence remained in Philadelphia, USA.

In 2012, following the passing of his wife Margaret Rhoads, Kendon relocated from Philadelphia, USA to his place of origin, Cambridge, United Kingdom where he continued his academic pursuits, recently completing a review and revision of a selection of previously published papers that will be published posthumously."

For further information on Dr Adam Kendon's work, here is a link to his Wikipedia page.