Joseph Keys was an associate of The Rammer and part of a gang that terrorised the Monaro district of New South Wales in late 1834.

Keys came from Hatfield in Hertfordshire, England. On 1 April 1829 he was convicted of Highway Robbery in the Assizes at Chelmsford, Essex, and sentenced to transportation for life. He arrived in Sydney aboard the Katherine Stewart Forbes on 19 February 1830.

He escaped on 2 July 1834, was recaptured and escaped again from Goulburn Jail, in company with the Rammer, on 2 September.

On 14 December 1834, Keys took part in a raid on Catterall's station at Rock Flat, 15 km south of Cooma. The Rammer was shot dead and Keys engaged in a firefight with the convict overseer, Charles Fisher Shepherd. With the assistance of one of Shepherd's convicts, Thomas Pearson, Shepherd was shot, beaten, then shot at close range and left for dead.

Keys and the third member of the gang, Edward Boyd, then escaped. A party from the 2nd Division of the Mounted Police assisted by a convict, William Coleman, pursued them. On 15 January 1835, the police party came up with Boyd and Keys camped by the Snowy River. They dived into the river to avoid capture. Boyd was shot while swimming. Keys escaped. The leader of the police party, Corporal Bugden, placed one policeman at the hut on each remote grazing station on the Snowy River. Two days later, Keys came up to a station belonging to Amos Crisp and was arrested by Trooper George Smith. Keys then was armed only with a dagger.

On 4 May 1835, Keys appeared before the Supreme Court of New South Wales indicted for shooting at Charles Fisher Shepherd with intent to kill him. He pleaded guilty and was remanded for sentence. On 15 May 1835 he was sentenced to death. He was executed on 2 June.

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Further information from: Jack Smith