George Drummond (politician)
George Drummond (1688–1766) was a Scottish politician and accountant who served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh several times between 1725 and 1764. He was not the grandson of the earlier Sir George Drummond, who was Provost in 1683–1685; they were from different branches of the Drummond family.
Drummond was born at Newton Castle near Blairgowrie, Perthshire. He went to the High School in Edinburgh and began his career as an accountant, working on the finances of the 1707 Act of Union at age 18. At 20 he was appointed Accountant General of the Board of Customs, and in 1717 he was promoted to Commissioner.
In the 1720s, reforms to Scottish taxation led to public protests, including the malt tax riots in 1725. In Glasgow, an apprentice named Andrew Millar challenged Drummond’s authority by printing opposition material in Leith, outside Edinburgh’s council. Drummond was a strong opponent of Jacobitism. He fought against a Jacobite force at the Battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715 and, during the Jacobite rising of 1745, he raised volunteers to defend Edinburgh.
Drummond joined the Edinburgh Town Council in 1716. He raised funds to build the Royal Infirmary, designed by William Adam in 1738, which became one of the world’s leading teaching hospitals. In 1760 he commissioned the Royal Exchange, later known as the Edinburgh City Chambers. He also promoted the University of Edinburgh, helping it grow and establishing five professorships in medicine.
He is best known as the main promoter of Edinburgh’s New Town. In 1766 he persuaded the Town Council to fund a grand plan to extend the city northward and launched a design competition won by the 21-year-old architect James Craig. In 1759 he began draining the Nor’ Loch and, in 1763, laid the foundation stone for the North Bridge.
Drummond was a Freemason. He joined the Lodge of Edinburgh in 1721, founded Lodge Drummond Kilwinning, and served as Grand Master Mason of the Grand Lodge of Scotland from 1752 to 1753. He laid the Royal Exchange’s foundation stone in 1753. He also joined the Free Gardener lodge in 1722.
His house stood north of the city and was later named Bellevue House, then the Excise Office, on what is now Drummond Place. He died in Edinburgh on 4 December 1766 and was buried at Canongate Churchyard. Drummond Place and Drummond Street are named in his honour.
His sister May Drummond became a Quaker minister, and his daughter Jean Drummond (d. 1766) married Reverend John Jardine, a minister at Tron Kirk and Dean of the Chapel Royal.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 04:02 (CET).