Born on 5 June at Hemel Hempstead the second of the three sons of the Rev Travers Clark, he was a grandson of Frederick Le Gros Clark, President of the College in 1874, member of Council from 1864 to 1879 and surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital. For his education Le Gros Clark went to Blundell's School,

Keen was born on 4 July 1894 and qualified from Charing Cross Hospital Medical School during the first world war, and served as a medical officer in East Africa. After the war he obtained the FRCS, and practised as an ENT surgeon in Leicester for over fifteen years. He then diverted his career to an