Victoria Drummond, MBE (1894–1978)

[JK]

I was just finished reading about the first woman marine engineer. You would have thought it was a rather recent development, but she began her apprenticeship in 1916 in the Northern Garage, Perth, England. She then moved to the Caledon Ship Works in Dundee where she stayed until 1922, then to sea as a 10th engineer.
We get discouraged if we miss our Chiefs exams the first and second time. She sat for it 37 times according to some sites! To avoid the accusations of unfairness, the Examiners reportedly failed everyone who was unfortunate to sit with her in that round of exams. I guess being of the Peerage and Queen Victoria's god-daughter never helped her.
In WW2 she was awarded the Lloyd’s War Medal for Bravery at Sea and Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her conduct in an attack by the Luftwaffe on the ship Bonita while she was on watch.
Anyways, an interesting read. This must have been one tough woman.
I like how Wikepedia understates the difficulties she had with some of the senior engineering staff. LOL


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Drummond

[JollyJack]

hhhmmmmm in Dundee, Queen Vickie's god-daughter and a peer! Marine Engineers then, as now, are working class, that's why she sat 37 times. Knowledge, skill and ability were entirely irrelevant, Class was everything, which is why steerage passengers were locked below on trans-Atlantic voyages, for example.

It worked both ways, still does, class warfare is alive and well.

[JK]

I never thought of that aspect. Maybe the old Queen stuck her royal finger in
I am sure the majority of her peers were horrified at her going to sea as working class, especially pre-WW2 before the class structures started to crumble a bit.

[jimmys]

I served my time on the Clyde and similar to miss Drummond joined Blue Funnel line in the early sixties, not much had changed an all male company full of Welshman very traditional. Full of bullies. I was a middleweight 12 stone five feet nine I never got bothered much, but I can imagine how she was treated. Difficult for her to fight back. I was with Texaco later and I never sailed with a female engineer in the whole of my career, not much changed.

[Big Pete]

The class structure is still with us, it was the origin of the whole "Oil & Water" struggle, when Engineers were not considered to have good enough Table Manners to eat with the Officers, and their Technical education was considered inferior to an "Arts" education.

But if you read about the old sailing ships the Deck Officers and crew were extremely competent at a lot of tasks that would be regarded as Engineering now. Read stories about rigging Jury Masts and rudders on storm damaged ships, pure Engineering.

I read Victoria Drummonds Biography some years ago, ( I think it was written by her Niece) and found it fascinating. She had to sail for Greek owners to get a Chief Engineer's job, no one else would employ her and she was paid far less than her Male contemporaries. On a less technical note the story of her as a Child pulling out a fluff encrusted piece of Toffee from her pocket and offering it to the King, who eat it with great aplomb and told her how good it was, was a little gem.

In over 43 years at Sea I have only sailed with one Female Engineer. I have never been sure why so few come to Sea, especially nowadays, when the life of an Engineer is far less Physically demanding and we no longer have communal showers and bathrooms.

[The Dieselduck]

A fantastic read, thanks for sharing. I think she sure had more than her fair share of bullies to deal with. What a persistent soul.

[JK]

Did you see she was signed on as mate and engineer during the war? Was that for cargo handling?
She did her last trip at 67, I'll bet she was pretty cranky by then.