Grand Masters of Scotland - Onondaga and Oswego Masonic ...

So wrote Allan Ramsay, wigmaker and bookseller at the sign of Mercury in the High Street.
In 1715, George Drummond was promoted to be one of the Commissioners of Customs and his salary was £1,000 a year. Perhaps
because of the knowledge of the Highlands, which his post with the Excise had brought, or maybe by chance, Drummond was the
first to inform the Government of the Rebellion of August that year. It was quickly extinguished at Sheriffmuir in mid November, but
not rapidly enough to prevent George Drummond from raising a company of volunteers to take part in the battle. It is said he took
time after victory to send a letter to the magistrates of Edinburgh informing them of the results of the battle, "which letter was written
hastily in the saddle and sent by messenger immediately".
In 1717, he was elected to be City Treasurer despite a good deal of opposition from the Jacobite members of the different Trades'
Incorporation. This was to bear fruit the following year when in September a long and closely worded protest against his continuing
in office was laid before the Council. He had a majority with him and it is interesting to see that the Town Council of those days,
despite being largely self-elected, was still capable of being influenced by the great political figures of the land: the Duke of Argyll,
Tweeddale, Milton and Forbes of Culloden. "Mr Drummond and several other gentlemen of established reputation attend to the
business of the metropolis" says the Scots Magazine. He was again elected to the Council in 1721 and became Dean of Guild the
following year, during which time he became a Freemason. In October 1725 he became Lord Provost for the first time, an office he
was to fill on five subsequent occasions in the next forty years.
No one could live in Edinburgh of the time without being certain that the city left great room for improvement. The streets were dirty
and there was neither sewage nor water supply. The wells in the back gardens no longer contained clean water, and pavements
and closes were broken and slippery with the garbage of ages. In 1674 piped water from the Pentlands was led to a tank on the
Castlehill and then to stand-pipes in several parts of the town. The supply was insufficient and often failed. Infection and disease
was commonplace everywhere. Medical knowledge was non-existent and the surgeons and barbers, whose Incorporation was
already two centuries old, were ignorant and bungling.
In his first essay at improving the city, which he served as Treasurer, Drummond put forward Dr Alexander Munro, who had studied
in London, Paris and Leyden to fill the Chair of Anatomy and Surgery, then held by an aged connection, a Professor Drummond.
Bower, in his History of the University, declares this to be the beginning of the fame of Edinburgh throughout Europe for the extent
of its medical teaching.
The next came during his first tenure of the office of Provost. A public subscription for an Infirmary was advertised and some' £2,000
was quickly gathered, and a beginning made in 1729 with a small hospital on ground once belonging to the Blackfriars. Seven years
later, a royal charter granted by George II stimulated contributions, and the first Infirmary was built with George Drummond and Dr
Munro as the supervisors of the Building Committee. Drummond worked for a decade in this great project. He had the ability to
interest others, and there is a minute of November 1738 in the Lodge of Canongate Kilwinning, No.2, recording that George
Drummond, Grand Warden, and other Officers of Grand Lodge together with members of Canongate Kilwirming, and of the Lodge
of Edinburgh and Journeymen Masons "agree to contribute for apartments in the Infirmary for five damaged Brethren, four to be
nominated by Grand Lodge and one by the Journeyman Masons Lodge". In his diary a month earlier for 13th October he had
written, "Forwarding the building of the Royal Infirmary is the only amusement I have allowed myself in, of a great while. At first it
was uphill work, but now it is the favourite undertaking amongst all ranks of people." Evidently he did not regard his Freemasonry as
an amusement.
At this time his salary as Commissioner was halved, and widowed again with a family ranged in age from six to twenty-nine, ten of
his fourteen children having survived, he found himself in straitened circumstances. Moving to Easter Hauls, now Colinton, where he
was invited to serve as an elder, he found himself pushed into marriage once more. A Mrs Fenton, relict of an Edinburgh baillie, was
the matchmaker, and in January 1739 he took as his third wife a Mrs Hannah Livingston, a widow with no encumbrances and a
substantial fortune. At a stroke his difficulties were relieved and the lady died in 1742 after three years and one month of marriage.
By this time, however, his diary has ceased and we do not know if the alliance was happy as well as fortunate.
The "Forty Five" was a momentous happening for the country and the people. The son of the Old Pretender had a great deal going
for him in the way of national sympathy, but the political animosity between Whig and Tory was still stronger. Edinburgh was an
unprotected city which years of neglect and greed had done nothing to alleviate. The army of the Highlanders advanced so rapidly
that remedy was impossible and, besides, it was largely believed that the Provost and many of the Council favoured the Prince. Now
in his late fifties, George Drummond stepped forward as a volunteer and quickly raised six companies consisting of 418 men to meet
the enemy. The circumstances are clearly set forth in The Scots Magazine of 1802 where we are told that "When Charles was within
a few miles of the Capital, Captain Drummond and the Volunteers were drawn up within the College Yards. He informed them of the
approach of the rebels and warned them that they must conquer or die." They joined the Town Guard and the Dragoons from the
Castle in the Lawnmarket, but by the time the Netherbow was reached courage had evaporated and few of the volunteers were
willing to proceed against the enemy. The Dragoons with the Town Guard were defeated the following day at Corstorphine and
Captain Drummond, holding his Company well in order, marched to the Castle where they gave up their arms.
Some of his volunteers still following, George Drummond joined Sir John Cope to be beaten at Prestonpans, and he followed the
General to Berwick and thence travelled on to London. While there he courted and married his fourth wife and returned with her to
Edinburgh in October 1745 when the Highlanders had gone.
It tells much of the man himself that twice in a long life he hastened to battle for what he believed to be right. We have evidence of
this in the document issued by the Commission of the General Assembly and dated 15th November 1745, in the framing of which he
played a large part. This was read from most pulpits throughout the land. It begins by pointing out that it is the duty of the Church to
warn of the imminent danger to liberty and continues . . . "Specious declarations are made of securing to British Protestants their
religion and liberty made by the sons of a church whose known principle and practice is never to keep faith with heretics (and such
she reckons all Protestants).
"To strengthen this pretended security a promise is made to call a free Parliament and to act always by the advice of Parliament.
Can anything be more absurd that he who considers the Nation as his natural estate and the Members thereof as his property, will
allow himself to be restrained by any limitation or have regard to anything but his sole will and pleasure? . . . The minds of these
men must be monstrously perverted who favour a design the consequence of which must be the subversion of civil and religious
liberty. Can we expect liberty from an armed force? Just Laws from lawless men? Security of our property from invaders of
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