Britain’s first female marine engineer could become the first person to be inducted into a new Hall of Heroes.
Born in 1894 at Megginch Castle, near Errol, Victoria Drummond was named after her godmother, Queen Victoria.
After being presented at court as a debutante in in 1913, she cast aside traditional gender roles to achieve a string of firsts.
A childhood fascination with machinery, nurtured at Robert Morton and Sons engineering works in her home village, led to an apprenticeship at the Northern Garage, on Perth’s South Street.
She completed her apprenticeship at the Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Dundee before joining a Merchant Navy ship in 1922.
Resilient in the face of prejudice, she achieved many career firsts – the first woman marine engineer in Britain, the first British woman to serve as a Merchant Navy Chief Engineer, the first woman to hold a Board of Trade Certificate as a ship’s engineer – having been failed 37 times because she was a woman – and the first woman member of the Institute of Marine Engineers.
As a result of her courage under fire at sea during World War II, she was awarded an MBE in 1941 and was the first woman to receive the Lloyd’s War Medal for Bravery at Sea.
After the war, she worked as a superintendent in shipyards in Dundee and Burntisland, then at sea as second or chief engineer until her retirement.
Drummond, who died in 1978, has now been shortlisted for a commemorative exhibition of remarkable women in Scotland at The National Wallace Monument in Stirling.
The shortlist recognises the achievements of 14 women who have shaped the country in the areas of arts, culture and sport, medicine, science and engineering and public life.
Other women from Scotland’s history on the shortlist are: Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, Màiri Mhòr nan Òran, Jean Redpath, Nancy Riach, Elsie Inglis, Sophia Jex Blake, Maggie Keswick Jencks, Dorothée Pullinger, Chrystal Macmillan, Mary Somerville, Christian Maclagan, Jane Haining and Mary Slessor.
Visitors to the Monument and members of the public are being invited to have their say by voting for the candidate they would most like to see recognised in The Hall of Heroes for her achievements.
Voting takes place online at www.nationalwallacemonument.com, or in person at the Monument, and the deadline for final entries is March 31.The final selection will be announced in April.
