Introduction / Families / Drummond / William Drummond and Barbara Groat / John Drummond and Janet Reid / John Drummond and Margaret Benston

Peter Benston Drummond

Peter Benston Drummond (b. 9th May 1867) was a son of John Drummond and Margaret Benston.

He married Jemima Chalmers (b. 3rd March 1874) in Stronsay in 1893. Jemima was the daughter of Janet Chalmers.

Peter and Jemima formed a separate household at Bredakirk from his parents who remained there.

They had four children who survived childbirth:

• John Alexander Drummond, born 1894 who was a seaman in the Royal Navy. He was discharged and died at Bredakirk on 28th February 1918 of tuberculosis.

• Peter Benston Drummond, born 1896 who married Mary Jane Wilson on 21st February 1921 in Kirkwall. Mary was the daughter of Walter Traill Dennison Wilson, the miller at the meal mill in Eday and Mary Ann Paterson. Peter and Mary Jane had family. He was a cabinetmaker and died in Racine, Wisconsin in 1961.

• James Drummond, born July 1898 (twin) who married Mary Robertson (b.11th August 1896) at the Deerness Manse on 12th September 1924. James was a farm servant in Deerness and Mary a housekeeper. She was an illegitimate daughter of Magnus Robertson and Mary Shearer. They had family. James and Mary divorced in 1944. At this time, James was a farm servant in Glen Ogilvie, Angus

• Robert Drummond, born July 1898 (twin). He died in 1970.

Jemima died on 23rd November 1908. She was thirty four.

Peter remarried on 28th February 1917. His second wife was Joanna Kent, the daughter of George Kent and Joanna Laughton Irvine. The Kents had been on Pharay for a short time in the early 1890s.

While the Kents had Westray ancestry, they had gone to Pharay from Firth and most of the family were in Harray by 1901. Joanna was a servant at Caperhouse, Harray at that time.

When Peter and Joanna married, Joanna was a domestic and dressmaker at Damside in Eday. Her mother had died the previous year. She was then thirty two and Peter was forty nine.

Joanna died on 4th October 1920. She was thirty five.

Peter continued to live at Bredakirk although he died at Eastbank Hospital in Kirkwall on 19th March 1953. He was eighty five.

The gravestone in the Old Kirkyard in Eday recording the death of both Jemima and Joanna and Peter’s son, John Drummond, also mentions a stillborn child, Pearl Drummond.