Eng Lieut James Drummond RNVR

James Drummond was a Freemason and member of Lodge Temperance 2557 who served in the 2nd World War. A letter to the Provincial Grand Secretary of Northumberland from WBro John Sowerby, Secretary, and dated 7th November 1947 attached a list of the names and service of forty three Brethren and Brother James is shown serving in the Royal Navy.

At the Lodge Temperance 2557 meeting held at the Royal Assembly Rooms, Westgate Road, on 21^st October 1946 James was proposed by Bro James Dixon and seconded by Bro William C. Dixon as a fit and proper person to be made a Freemason.

He was a 35 year old Engineer Lieutenant with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve residing at 58, Broadway, Sheriff Hill, Gateshead.  A successful ballot was held the following month on 18^th November and he was initiated into the mysteries and privileges of Ancient Freemasonry on 16^th December. He was passed to the second or Fellowcraft degree on 14^th February 1947 and raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason on 15^th September 1947.

His brother Thomas Robson Drummond was also a freemason and member of the Lodge having been initiated in 1945. Thomas is also listed in the WW2 Roll of Honour and is shown as being in the merchant navy.

James was born on 24^th August 1911 in Gateshead to George Little and Catherine Robson Drummond. Dad George was a fitter and turner with a motor car builder in 1911 and by 1939 a millwright. It’s interesting that at George’s birth, and at other times, his name was recorded as George “Little” Drummond, but he was in fact named in honour of his Orkney-born grandfather George Liddell Drummond. He was also in the Royal Navy during WW1 as an Engine Room Artificer 4^th Class and after training served on board HMS Comus, a light cruiser.  He was born in Gateshead in 1888 and married Gateshead born Catherine Robson Liddell in Gateshead in 1909. They had five children:

• Jane Isabella Liddell (b 27/07/1909 – 22/11/1988)
• James (24/8/1911 – 3/01/1988)
• Thomas Robson (21/09/1915 – 27/10/1976)
• George Liddell (b 21/01/1918 – 1/10/1997)
• Alma (04/01/1923 – 24/04/1981)

James married Ethel May Paxton on 24^th July 1934 in the Venerable Bede Church in Gateshead. In 1939 they were living in Leeds where he was working as an Engineer examining Tanks most likely at the Vickers Armstrongs armaments factory working for the Ministry of Supply. At the time the company were manufacturing the Infantry tank Mk 1 commonly called the Matilda 1 and the Mk II called Matilda II.

The UK Navy Lists show he was commissioned as a Temporary Warrant Officer on 11th January 1943, then Temporary Lieutenant on 24th August 1944 until his discharge in October 1945.

He was assigned in February 1943 until February 1944 to HMS Quebec, a shore establishment of the Royal Navy which was the Combined Operations Training Centre located on the remote shores of Loch Fyne, Inverary. Its prime purpose was to train army and navy service personnel in the use of minor landing craft for landing assault troops, supplies, ammunition and weaponry onto heavily defended enemy occupied beaches.

He was later assigned to HMS Copra (Combined operations accounting base), a Royal Navy shore base in Largs, Scotland which maintained personnel records, pay and allowances for RN personnel attached to Combined Operations. It was also used for navy personnel assigned to smaller unnamed vessels such as Landing Craft, so it’s likely James was serving and training on board landing craft during this period.

From 7^th March to October 1944 he was at HMS Sea Serpent, a Royal Navy shore base, located in two areas at Bracklesham Bay and Birdham near Chichester. It was a combined operations base used for training landing craft crews in the build up to the D Day landings. Perhaps James was part of the D Day landings!

From 2^nd March to April 1945 he served on HMS Hare an Algerine class minesweeper which was mine sweeping in and around the North Sea, Thames estuary and the Medway. The Algerine class were larger minesweepers capable of sweeping moored, magnetic and acoustic mines in seas up to force 5 and also capable of acting as an escort vessel if required.

His next posting from July 1945 to April 1946 was to Malta on HMS Rinaldo, another Algerine class minesweeper, operating in the Mediterranean for mine clearance off Malta, and in the Aegean.

His final posting from 9^th August to October 1946 was to HMS Resource a heavy fleet repair ship which in August 1945 was deployed as a Senior Officer’s ship in the Reserve Fleet at Portsmouth.

After the war, accompanied by his wife, he went to work in China and at some point they moved to Aldermaston in Berkshire where he worked on nuclear weapons at the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment.

James was living at “Itcha-Bin-Am”, Red Lane, Aldermaston, the other side of the road to the Weapons Establishment, when he died suddenly on 3 January 1988 at the age of 76. Ethel remained in Berkshire and died in 1996 at the age of 84.

Many thanks to the Drummond and Paxton families for the use of James’s photos and help with this short biography.