She was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on 24 June 1872,[1] the sixth child of William Christopher Bennett, and his first wife Agnes Amelia, née Hays.

She studied with fellow Australians Kate Welton Hogg and Mary Booth, and Irish women Eleanor Sproull[4] and Elizabeth Macrory.

She briefly worked at Callan Park, the hospital for the Insane before leaving in 1905 to take over the practice of a woman doctor in Wellington, New Zealand.

On 2 August 1916, the America Unit, in the command of Bennett, reached Southampton preparatory to embarking on the hospital ship Dunluce Castle for Salonika.

Finally, on 7 September 1916, the first vehicles of her thirty-nine car convoy (Mrs. Harley's Unit included), left Salonika on the road to Ostrovo Lake.

[8] Although, Ostrovo was up in the hills and the malaria threat was not as bad as in Salonika, it still claimed lives and would ultimately end her term as CMO when she fell victim to the disease as well.

For her contributions Bennett was awarded the Serbian Order of St Sava (third class) and the Royal Red Cross of Serbia .

[9][10] Bennett became the first president of the Wellington branch of the International Federation of University Women in 1923 and represented New Zealand at its world conference at Cracow, Poland, in 1936.

In the 1948 King's Birthday Honours, Bennett was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services as a medical practitioner in Wellington.

She contributed largely to the improvement of maternal and infant medical care in New Zealand, and through example, argument and organisation, did much to advance women's status.