Constance Keys

Constance Mabel Kemp-Pennefather, RRC (née Keys; 30 October 1886 – 17 March 1964) was a decorated Australian nurse of the First World War.

She was mentioned twice in despatches, was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class and the French Military Health Service honour medal.

[1] Keys was born in Mount Perry, a small town in the Wide Bay–Burnett region of Queensland, the seventh child of Irish immigrant James Keys, a schoolteacher and botanist, and his wife Margaret.

Trained at the Brisbane General Hospital as a nurse, she enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in September 1914 and was posted to the Australian Army Nursing Service.

She married Lionel Hugh Kemp-Pennefather on 3 December 1921, and was the mother of Australian naturalist and conservationist Margaret Thorsborne.