British botanist and civil servant in India. James Drummond was born in Scotland and graduated BA from Oxford University in 1872. He began a 30-year career in the Indian Civil Service in 1874. Based in the Punjab, he served at first as Assistant Commissioner, then as District Judge and Deputy Commissioner. During his last few months in India, Drummond was appointed curator of the herbarium at the Calcutta Royal Botanic Gardens. He developed an expert knowledge of the flora of the western Punjab, where he made significant collections of plant specimens. He also collected in the Simla Hills, around Dalhousie and the Ganges. He returned to England in 1905 where he continued his botanical work at Kew, determining his collections and preparing a flora of the Punjab. Ill health interfered with this, however, and he died while it was in the early stages. He did manage to complete a few works, which were published before his death, for example an extensive paper on the agaves and furcroyas of India (co-authored by David Prain and published in the Land Records and Agriculture, Bengal, 1905).

Sources:
Anon., 1921, Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, 1921(3): 123
I.C. Hedge, 1987, "Edinburgh's Indian botanical connections and collections", Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India, 29(1-4): 272-285.