Ronke Doherty

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Ronke Doherty, born in 1916, was a Nigerian women’s leader and activist. She trained as a teacher in Lagos and in England, then taught at CMS Girls School. In 1940 she married Richard Doherty and moved to Ibadan, where she supported voluntary work with the Red Cross and leprosy relief. She served on Lagos’s Government Scholarship Board (1945–1960) and was secretary of the Western Region Scholarship Board, briefly returning to teaching at Queens College. Doherty directed the Ibadan branch of the Nigerian Red Cross and helped fight smallpox and provide relief during the Nigerian Civil War in Asaba. She later became president of the Western State National Council of Women’s Societies, and from 1976 to 1980 she led the National Council of Women’s Societies. She was the wife of Richard Adeeyo Doherty, former Speaker of the Western House of Assembly, and her father was Nathaniel Fehintola Williams of Egba heritage.