Victoria Drummond defied expectations as Britain's first female marine engineer, overcoming 37 rejections to prove her talent and bravery.
Born in a castle in Scotland in 1894, Victoria Drummond was the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Growing up in a privileged environment, it was expected that she would make a good marriage, host tea parties, and fade into the background of history.
At the age of 22, she declared her desire to become a marine engineer. Her family thought it was a temporary whim, and her father arranged for her to work in a garage for a week, assuming that dirt and noise would deter her. Instead, she stayed there for two years before moving to the Dundee shipyards, becoming the only woman among 3,000 men in 1916. Women who wanted to work with their hands instead of embroidery needles were often referred to as unnatural, but Victoria paid no attention to the derogatory remarks. She apprenticed alongside master engineers while studying at a technical college at night and working relentlessly during the day.
Victoria learned to read technical drawings, rebuild engines, and ignore the men who told her daily that she didn’t belong there. She worked harder than anyone else because she had to prove herself more than anyone else. In 1922, she landed her first job as a tenth engineer on a ship bound for Australia.
As a tenth engineer, she held the lowest rank and faced the dirtiest job in the hottest engine room. She accepted this position without complaint. By 1926, at the age of 32, Victoria Drummond received her Second Engineer certificate, becoming Britain’s first certified female marine engineer. However, Britain celebrated this milestone by refusing to hire her as a Second Engineer, instead employing her as a Fifth Engineer, three ranks below her qualification and at a significantly lower salary. Undeterred, Victoria decided to take the Chief Engineer certification exam, the highest qualification that would allow her to command any engine room.
She took the exam in 1929 but failed. In 1930, she took it again and failed. She continued this pattern for three more years. As the years passed, Victoria faced the examiners of the British Board of Trade, answering their technical questions about steam engines, diesel mechanics, fuel systems, and marine engineering. Year after year, they found her unsuccessful, not due to incompetence, but because they could not accept a woman at the helm of an engine room.
By 1939, Victoria had taken the exam 37 times, facing thirty-seven rejections. For ten years, while England told her she would never be good enough, she lived by doing various jobs to make ends meet.
Then came September 1939, when World War II broke out in Europe. Ships became targets, and engineers became invaluable. Victoria tried to work on British merchant ships, but Britain still said no. Consequently, she took a job on the SS Bonita, a merchant ship registered in Panama and flying a neutral flag. In August 1940, while in the mid-Atlantic with no convoy protection, a German bomber spotted them. The attack came without warning, with bombs screaming down from the sky. Near misses created shockwaves in the ship's hull, causing pipes to burst and water to flow toward the boilers. Men in the engine room panicked, some rushing for the exits.
Victoria Drummond stood at the control panel and commanded, “Get out! Now!” When the last man climbed to safety, she remained. Alone, amidst bombs exploding close enough to rattle her teeth, in an engine room filled with scalding steam and seawater, Victoria did what Britain said a woman could never do. She opened the fuel injectors wider than they had ever been opened before and pushed the engines harder than they had ever been pushed. The SS Bonita had a maximum speed of 9 knots, but Victoria managed to extract 12.5 knots from the ship. This extra speed allowed the captain to zigzag between falling bombs, ultimately saving the lives of everyone on board. She refused to leave her post until the attack was over and the German bomber finally broke off its pursuit.
When she finally emerged from the engine room, soaked in sweat and seawater, her hands were burned from the overheated controls. For her bravery under fire, Victoria Drummond was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) and the Maritime Courage Medal, becoming the first female engineer to receive these honors.
In April 1942, Drummond joined the 7,071 GRT Manchester Port of Manchester Liners as a Fifth Engineer in Liverpool. The ship was unkempt and dirty, meals were poorly served, and Captain Davis appeared to be constantly drunk. Nevertheless, the Manchester Port was assigned as the Commodore Ship for convoy ON 89 heading to North America. The ship made the crossing and loaded dynamite in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, on May 17. On May 20, the ship arrived in Halifax to join a convoy heading east. Drummond reported Davis for drunkenness, and on May 21, he was removed from the ship under police escort, with Captain Middleton taking his place. The Manchester Port joined convoy HX 191, which departed Halifax on May 24 and reached Liverpool on June 6. The ship unloaded its explosive cargo in Manchester, and Drummond returned to her sister ships in Lambeth.
You would think that would be enough, and that Britain would finally accept what she had proven. You would be wrong. After the war ended in 1945, Victoria applied once more for the British Chief Engineer certificate. The Board of Trade told her that at 51 years old, after five years of war service that included saving a ship under enemy fire, she would have to take the exam for the 38th time. Victoria Drummond looked at them and said no. Instead, she applied for the Panama Chief Engineer exam, where the exams were anonymized, and the examiners did not know the candidate's name or gender. She passed on her first attempt.
For the next 17 years, Victoria Drummond served as Chief Engineer. However, as British shipping companies still did not fully accept her, she mostly worked on unkempt ships under foreign flags. She made her last voyage at the age of 66 on a ship registered in Hong Kong that was unseaworthy.
Victoria Drummond retired in 1962 after 40 years at sea. She quietly passed away at the age of 84 on December 25, 1978, and was buried in Megginch Castle in Scotland, where she was born into privilege 84 years earlier.
Over the years, Victoria Drummond repeatedly proved that talent has no gender. When someone asked her what motivated her despite all these rejections, she simply replied, “Because I loved engines.” Not to make a political statement, not to be a symbol for women's rights, and not for recognition or fame—she just loved her work. When you love something enough, you find a way. Not their way.
Victoria Drummond worked at sea for forty years doing the job she loved and proved every day that she was exactly where she belonged. Victoria Drummond (1894-1978) – the goddaughter of Queen Victoria – chose engines over castles. She was Britain’s first certified female marine engineer, a World War II hero, and a woman who faced 37 failures yet succeeded. Engines did not care about her gender, and she did not care either. She just kept them running.
