Zoë Maynard

Zoë Ruth Davis, Lady Maynard ( Cumberbatch; 1926 – 10 December 2018) was an important figure in the Bahamas known for advancing women's rights.

Early life In 1926 her parents, surgeon Roland Cumberbatch and musician Meta Davis Cumberbatch, moved from Trinidad to the Bahamas when her father accepted a post from the Colonial Medical Service. She was born Zoë Ruth Davis Cumberbatch the same year.

Military service During World War II Maynard, still a teenager, enlisted as a private in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and was stationed in Jamaica. She had numerous duties, including communications. Maynard and her husband had five children: Julian (died 1995), Peter, Allyson, David and Clement III. (Her husband also had one daughter from a previous relationship.) Their daughter Allyson would go on to become the country's attorney general.

For some time, Maynard worked for the British Overseas Airways Corporation. Arthur Foulkes recalled that she and her husband used the travel opportunities afforded by her career to purchase books for their comrades in the progressive movement. (Books by radical West Indian authors such as C. L. R. James, Frantz Fanon and George Padmore were not easily accessible in the colony.) She also served as secretary for the Women's Branch of the Progressive Liberal Party.

Later life After her husband's death in 2009, Maynard began studying pottery and painting. Her works were exhibited in group shows such as "The F Factor: Female Artists of The Bahamas".

Maynard died on 10 December 2018 at the age of 92.