Drummond

Drummond is a rural village on the road between Daylesford and Malmsbury, 85 km north-west of Melbourne.

Drummond was probably named after James Drummond (1784-1863), an English born botanist who carried out extensive work and plant collecting in Western Australia.

The village is situated near the Kangaroo Creek and the Coliban River. A school was opened by the Church of England in 1860 with the unlikely name of Jim Crow Road (see 'Jim Crow' discussed in the Daylesford entry). A second school was opened at Drummond North in 1868, and the Church of England school was replaced with a government one in 1877. The district was principally agricultural and two hotels were recorded in 1865. Mining activity increased towards the end of the 1890s, with the estimated population put at 500 persons. Drummond was described in the Australian handbook in 1903:

The municipal directory also recorded a creamery for local dairying, and one store. Mining, however, declined quite early, and the district is mainly pastoral.

Drummond has a school (11 pupils, 2014), a hall and the Cliston Farm bed and breakfast establishment. Drummond North school closed in 1948.

Drummond's census populations have been: