He was born on 28 March 1935 in Yorkshire, the son of teachers and spent some of his childhood in Wales. He was educated at the
Mill Hill School in London then won a scholarship to
Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Double First in the Natural Sciences Tripos. Kendell was later awarded the
Gaskell Medal. Aged 38 he was appointed to the chair of psychiatry in
Edinburgh. In 1986 he was made the Dean of the Medical School and during his four years in this post he supervised a period of expansion. In 1991 he was appointed the Chief Medical Officer of Scotland. In 1997 he was elected the president of the
Royal College of Psychiatrists and served for a three-year term. As Chief Medical Officer, he worked to build awareness of the influence of diet and smoking on health, as well as contributing to the responses to
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy and
HIV/AIDS. ==Research==