Edward Drummond

Edward Drummond (30 March 1792 – 25 January 1843) was a British civil servant, and was Personal Secretary to several British prime ministers. He was fatally shot by Daniel M'Naghten, whose subsequent trial gave rise to the M'Naghten rules, the legal test of insanity used in many common law jurisdictions.

Life and career Drummond was a member of the family who owned and ran Drummonds Bank, and a great-grandson of William Drummond, 4th Viscount Strathallan who died fighting for the Jacobite cause at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. His parents were Charles Drummond, a banker, and his wife, Frances Dorothy (herself the second daughter of the Reverend Edward Lockwood). He was one of nine children, of whom five survived to adulthood. His sister Charlotte did not marry and shared a house with him in Lower Grosvenor Street. His older brother Charles followed their father into the bank; younger brother Berkeley went into the army and younger brother Arthur into the church. Drummond joined the civil service in June 1814, becoming a clerk at the Treasury. He was later Private Secretary to a succession of British Prime Ministers: George Canning, Lord Goderich, the 1st Duke of Wellington, and Robert Peel. However, complications set in and Drummond died five days later, aged 50. He was buried at St Luke's Church, Charlton, where his brother Arthur was rector.

In popular culture Drummond features as a character in season 2 of the ITV television series Victoria. He is portrayed as being considerably younger than he was in the 1840s, and the year and circumstances of his assassination are significantly altered. He is also shown as having a relationship with Lord Alfred Paget, which is generally regarded as improbable. In the TV series, Drummond is killed instantly when he throws himself in front of an assassin's bullet to protect Peel immediately after the vote to repeal the Corn Laws.