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Mary Marguerite Leneen Forde AC (born 12 May 1935) is the Canadian-born Chancellor of Griffith University, and was Governor of Queensland from 1992 until 1997. Leneen Forde was only the second woman to be appointed to the position of governor of an Australian state and the first to take on the role in Queensland. She was a highly respected state governor. In 1998, Forde was appointed to chair the Commission of Inquiry into Abuse of Children in Queensland Institutions. Her report was handed down in May 1999.
Born Leneen Kavanagh in Ottawa, Canada, she worked as a medical laboratory technician and studied part-time for a Bachelor of Arts before moving to Australia in 1954. In 1955, she married Francis Gerard Forde, the son of the Right Honorable Francis Michael Forde PC, former Prime Minister of Australia and High Commissioner to Canada. Forde worked in the Haematology Department of Royal Brisbane Hospital for two years prior to full-time legal study following her husband's death in 1966. She graduated a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Queensland in 1970 and from 1971 was employed as a solicitor. From 1974 to 1992, she was a Partner of Cannan & Peterson in charge of probate and estates. Forde was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1993 and is a Dame of Grace in the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. She was International President of Zonta from 1990 until 1992, and 1991 Queenslander of the Year.
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