James Drummond was a botanist, plant collector and one of the first white settlers in the Swan River colony, Western Australia. Appointed government naturalist, he arrived with his wife and six children on the Parmelia.
Leaving his sons to manage his farm, first in the Helena Valley and later at Toodyay, Drummond travelled the south and south west of Western Australia collecting seeds and plants which he sent to England.
In her Australian Dictionary of Biography entry on Drummond, Rica Erickson describes him: 'Old James Drummond, with his two white packhorses and kangaroo dogs, was a familiar figure throughout the colony. Described as a plain but agreeable old man, his dour Scottish face was framed by bushy white whiskers. He usually walked everywhere, his horses being laden with stores on the way out and specimens on the way home. When his knapsack and pockets were filled with plants his white head was bared and his hat was crammed to the brim.'
Source: Rica Erickson, 'Drummond, James (1787 - 1863)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, Melbourne University Press, 1966, pp 325-327.
