Drummond, Andrew W.

Person

Drummond, Andrew W.

1811-1898

Andrew Drummond was an architect active in Kingston, Ontario from 1834 until after 1850. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 13 February 1811, he was the son of George Drummond, a successful building contractor and member of Edinburgh City Council. His early training and experience in Scotland may have been gained with an architect in Edinburgh during the period from 1830 until June of 1834 when he emigrated to Canada. His uncle was Robert Drummond (1791-1834) who was referred to as the “sole contractor and architect” of portions of the new Rideau Canal at Kingston Mills (British Whig [Kingston], 22 July 1834, 3, descrip.) and it is likely that Robert D. persuaded his nephew Andrew to emigrate from Scotland and to settle in Kingston. Just two months after arriving, his uncle died suddenly during the cholera epidemic in August 1834, and Andrew D. took a job with the Commercial Bank in Kingston, and later served as Secretary to the Board of Trustees of Queen's College.

His training and skill as an architect was called upon in July1841 by the Board of Trustees of Queen's College,, Kingston [now Queen's University] when they approached Drummond, who was then serving as the Acting Secretary to the Board, and asked him to prepared a design for a new college building in Kingston. Drummond presented his refined Georgian scheme in September, only to have this abruptly shelved in favour of an open architectural competition among architects from Canada and the United States. The initial proposal by Drummond was not built, but his original drawings have survived and are now held at Queen University Archives in Kingston. Several of these drawings are reproduced in J. Douglas Stewart & Ian Wilson, Heritage Kingston, 1973, plates 146, 147 and 148, and reveal Drummond to be a knowledgeable and competent designer, and in late 1841 he was appointed by the Board to supervise and oversee the architectural competition that was eventually won by John G. Howard of Toronto.

No references to his architectural activity after 1845 have been found, and he appears to have abandoned the architectural profession, choosing instead to return to the world of banking, becoming manager of local branches of the Bank of Montreal in Kingston, then in London, Ont., and in Ottawa from 1866 onward. Drummond died in Ottawa, Ont. on 24 August 1898

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Biographical sketch from the Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada at http://dictionaryofarchitectsincanada.org/node/2640 (accessed 2025-02-06).