Drummond was the eldest son of John Drummond, a Member of Parliament related to the banking family that owned Drummonds Bank. He was educated at Leyden University, and after briefly studying law joined the army in 1739, being commissioned as lieutenant in the 47th Regiment of Foot in 1741 and promoted to Captain in 1745. In this capacity he served against the Jacobite Rebellion at the Battle of Prestonpans, where he was captured. He later served in North America, but was put on half-pay in 1753 and retired from the army in 1756 and set up as a merchant.
On 4 February1755, Drummond married Catherine Ashe, widow of William Ashe, MP and daughter of the 4th Duke of Bolton. The Bolton family controlled a number of pocket boroughs, and at the next general election (in 1761) Drummond entered Parliament as member for Lymington. Although the Duke of Bolton went into opposition after the election, Drummond supported the government, and in 1764 was rewarded when in partnership with Sir Samuel Fludyer he was awarded the lucrative contract for victualling the British troops in North America. Later the same year, Drummond, Fludyer and Anthony Bacon secured a 30-year lease of all the coal on Cape Breton Island and in 1767 he acquired a large land grant in St John's Island (now Prince Edward Island). Further profitable contracts followed and, unlike his partner Fludyer, Drummond was able to retain or renew them as governments changed by remaining loyal to whichever administration was in power and helped by the influence of his noble brother-in-law.
Drummond was a partner in the Bank of Ayr, which crashed disastrously in 1772, but his fortune survived. In 1775 Thomas Coutts took him into partnership, despite misgivings at his having been involved in the Ayr Bank collapse, but eventually had second thoughts and asked him to resign the partnership in 1780.
He died in 1786. His heir was his nephew, John Drummond, who also succeeded him as MP for Shaftesbury.
References
Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) [1]
Lewis Namier & John Brooke, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754-1790 (London: HMSO, 1964)
