Victoria Alexandrina Drummond, MBE (14 October 1894 – 25 December 1978), was the first woman marine engineer in the UK and the first woman member of Institute of Marine Engineers. In the Second World War she served at sea as an engineering officer in the British Merchant Navy, and received awards for bravery under enemy fire. Her career included service at sea with Blue Funnel Line, Manchester Liners, and Cunard-White Star Line, and ashore at Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Dundee.
During her engineering career, Drummond encountered both acceptance and prejudice because she was a woman. In 1926 she qualified as a second engineer, but no-one would sign her on as such, so she took work as a fifth engineer. From 1929 onwards she repeatedly sat the Board of Trade examination for promotion to chief engineer, but the BoT examiners repeatedly failed her, solely because she was a woman.
In the global shipping slump in the years after the Wall Street crash of 1929, Drummond found no work at sea for at least 11 years. Even after the UK entered the Second World War in 1939, no shipping company would employ her until 1940. She finally circumvented Board of Trade prejudice by passing the chief engineer examination of Panama, a flag of convenience. And even after that, in 1942 she again had to accept a position as fifth engineer.
In 1946 and again in 1952, Drummond served as a supervising engineer on behalf of two shipping companies, overseeing the building of new ships. From 1959 onwards she found work only on run-down tramp ships registered under flags of convenience, mostly Hong Kong. She retired in 1962, and died in 1978.
Childhood Victoria Drummond was born on 14 October 1894 at Errol, Perthshire, Scotland. Her father was Captain Malcolm Drummond of Megginch, Groom in Waiting to Queen Victoria and Deputy Lieutenant of Perthshire. Her mother, Geraldine Margaret Tyssen-Amherst was the daughter of William Tyssen-Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst of Hackney.
She had two sisters, Jean and Frances, and a younger brother, John Drummond, 15th Baron Strange. She was named Victoria for Queen Victoria, who was one of her godmothers. September 2004. Drummond and her siblings were brought up in both the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Episcopal Church. All four worked as children: growing vegetables and flowers to sell and keeping poultry. Drummond's speciality was hand-churning butter. Their privileged upbringing was straitened after her maternal grandparents lost a fortune in investments in 1906.
One of Drummond's grandmothers turned wood and ivory and belonged to the Worshipful Company of Turners. Drummond herself became a prizewinning model maker, making her own toys that were shown in exhibitions and won prizes in competitions.
Drummond used to visit the engineering works of Robert Morton and Sons in Errol, which built steam-powered and petrol-engined lorries and buses. As a young girl she asked Mr Morton how she could learn to be a marine engineer and go to sea. Morton may or may not have taken the young girl seriously, but he told her to serve an apprenticeship, find a shop with a vacancy and start at the beginning, serve her time and then find a ship that would give her a berth as an engineer.
In February 1913, she was presented at court to King George V and Queen Mary as a debutante.
Apprenticeship In 1915, Drummond turned 21, and her father encouraged her to choose her own career. She repeated her ambition to be a marine engineer. From 18 October 1916, she was apprenticed at the Northern Garage, South Street, Perth. Her wage as a first year apprentice was three shillings a week, from which sixpence was deducted for National Insurance so her net wage was half a crown. In her second year her wage before National Insurance was six shillings. Her foreman, a Mr Malcolm, who had worked in Clyde shipyards, gone to sea and risen to be a chief engineer at sea, supported her training. On three evenings a week a teacher from Dundee Technical College (now Abertay University) taught her maths and engineering.
Mr Malcolm supported Drummond's training, but in 1918 the garage dismissed him for drunkenness. Drummond took this as the right time to move on and resigned from the garage. Her father arranged her an introduction to the Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Dundee, which took her on in its engine and boiler works at Lilybank in Dundee. She started as a pattern maker for metal casting, and in 1919 was promoted to the finishing shop. She joined the Women's Engineering Society and completed her apprenticeship in 1920 after which she was elected a graduate of the Institute of Marine Engineers. She stayed on at Caledon as a journeyman, later transferring to the drawing office. In 1922, Caledon suffered a decline in orders and laid off many workers, including Drummond who left on 7 July.
Early years at sea Anchises
Early in Drummond's time at Caledon, the founder W.B. Thompson introduced her and her parents to Henry Wortley, a director of Blue Funnel Line. Wortley offered Drummond the promise of a position as an engineer at sea when she completed her apprenticeship. When Caledon gave her notice in 1922, Drummond wrote to Wortley to take up his offer. Unknown to Drummond, Wortley had died in 1919. However, Lawrence Holt honoured Wortley's promise and invited her to Liverpool for an interview.
Blue Funnel employed Drummond initially in its engineering record office in Liverpool on a salary of £12 a month. About a month later, on 25 August, she was instructed to sign on the passenger liner for a trial trip from Liverpool to Glasgow as an Assistant Engineer. On 2 September, she signed on Anchises again as Tenth Engineer. The salary of £10 a month was £2 less than the company had paid her ashore. A Christmas card sent by Drummond to the Women's Engineering Society from the Anchises in 1922 survives in the WES archives. She served on the ship until 1924, making four voyages to Australia and one to China.
On Anchises all the crew, all but one of the officers and most of the passengers accepted having a woman engineer. A few of the women passengers passed demeaning remarks at her. When Anchises usual Second Engineer was taken ill his position was covered by an extra Second, Mr Howard, who Drummond says "persecuted" her. Drummond was friends with the usual Second Engineer, Malcolm Quayle, who supported her career, was her escort for social events ashore and whom she called her "protector". The pair had prickly tempers, for which Drummond nicknamed Quayle "hedgehog" and he nicknamed her "Kate", after Katherina in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Quayle was married and had two children, and Drummond was emphatic that there was never any impropriety between them. However, when in 1924 she wanted to take her exams to become a Second Engineer, she unwisely wrote to her manager at Blue Funnel, Mr Freeman, suggesting that Quayle be promoted to Chief Engineer and she could be his Second. This gave Freeman the damaging impression that Quayle and Drummond were having an affair. Drummond left Anchises and Blue Funnel in April 1924.
Mulbera Drummond began to study for her Second Engineer's qualification and, in October 1926, she obtained her Second Engineer's Certificate becoming Britain's first certificated woman marine engineer. However, after qualifying, she was able to find work only as a Fifth Engineer, signing on the British-India Steam Navigation Company steam turbine liner on 14 April 1927. She served on the ship until 4 December 1928, completing one voyage to East Africa and four to India and Ceylon.
Aboard Mulbera Drummond was again accepted by nearly all the ship's company. The exception was the Second Engineer, Mr Lamb, who on Drummond's first day aboard told her that he didn't want her there. Drummond said Lamb often shouted at her, occasionally swore at her and thus wore her down. Drummond privately nicknamed Lamb the Tiger Cat or just "The Tiger". On occasion she also encountered passengers who initially did not believe a woman could be a marine engineer. Drummond won them round by competently doing her job.
In port in Aden on 11 May 1928, Drummond received an air mail letter telling her that aboard her former ship Anchises on 13 April her friend Malcolm Quayle had died. The letter gave no details of what had happened and she found out none until some time thereafter.
12 years ashore From about 1919, Drummond's sister Jean ran the Queen Victoria Girl's Club at 122 Kennington Road, Lambeth, south London: a job that included a flat at the top of the building. From 1929 Victoria and Frances leased a house almost opposite at 143 Kennington Road, which they named The Studio. Frances worked as a commercial artist and she and Victoria also developed a business, the Golden Fisheries, trading goldfish that they kept in their garden pond and in tanks in the house.
From October 1929, Drummond repeatedly sat the Board of Trade examination for Chief Engineer, but every time the examiners failed her. Mr Martin at Dundee continued to support her and eventually in 1936, tackled the examiners, who privately admitted to him that they always failed her because she was a woman. Indeed, to prevent any accusations of unfairness, the Board of Trade Examiners habitually failed all candidates who sat the examinations with her.
From 1935, Frances and Victoria's business took them abroad to trade fairs in Leipzig, Prague and Vienna. In March 1938 when German forces occupied Austria in the Anschluss, the two sisters were at a trade fair in Vienna. Drummond photographed Hitler in his motorcade and later described that time in Vienna as very tense, chaotic and dangerous.
Refugee children In response to their experience, the Drummond sisters helped several Austrian children to enter the UK as refugees, and sponsored them by finding schools, accommodation and paying their expenses for a year.Source: Gertrude Maiman (1922– ), one of the child refugees brought from Vienna.
World War II service In 1939, war seemed to grow inevitable so Drummond applied to return to sea as a Second Engineer. Despite her good service on liners of two of the most prestigious companies in the Merchant Navy, and glowing references from numerous superior officers, all her many applications were declined. Therefore, on the eve of World War II she joined Jean and Frances enlisting as Air raid wardens in Lambeth, London.
Har Zion
Drummond then tried visiting the Royal Docks in the hope of finding a ship that would take her on. Eventually on such a visit a donkeyman,A donkeyman was a crewman who operated and maintained machinery other than the ship's main engines. His exact responsibilities varied widely between different ships. who had served with her on Mulbera 12 years earlier, recognised Drummond in a café. He and his shipmates advised her that if no British company would take her she should try for a berth on a foreign ship. They introduced her to a representative of Palestine Maritime Lloyd, owned by a group of Jewish businessmen based in Haifa, Palestine. He was sceptical of signing a woman engineer until he saw her papers. Palestine Maritime Lloyd operated mostly coasters of 200 to , but had also one small deep-sea cargo and passenger ship, the (Mount Zion), that which could carry both cargo and 110 passengers. Har Zion needed a new Second Engineer so he immediately offered Drummond a berth at a salary of £41 10s.
Har Zion was registered at Famagusta in the British Protectorate of Cyprus. Her officers and crew were a mixture of Arab, Czech, Egyptian, German, Hungarian, Russian, and Spanish, and the ship's dog was Polish. She was built in 1907 and by 1940 was in poor condition. Drummond mastered disciplinary problems among the engine room crew and then in drydock in Antwerp completed enough furnace and boiler repairs for Har Zion to pass its Lloyd's Certificate inspection.