03/13/2026
Happy Women's History Month!!!
She failed her Chief Engineer's exam 37 times—not because she wasn’t qualified, but because the examiners couldn’t accept a woman passing.
Victoria Drummond was born in 1894 in Scotland, named after Queen Victoria, her godmother. Raised in a castle, expected to marry well and live quietly, she chose grease and engines instead.
When she announced she wanted to be a marine engineer, her father thought a week in a garage would cure her. She worked there for two years. Then she moved to the Dundee shipyards—the only woman among 3,000 men.
It was 1916. The Battle of the Somme. Women in most professions were still called unnatural. Victoria didn’t care. She apprenticed, studied nights at technical college, and worked harder than anyone because she had to prove more than anyone.
In 1922, she got her first berth—tenth engineer on a ship to Australia. The lowest engineering rank. The hardest work. By 1926, she earned her Second Engineer’s certificate: Britain’s first certified female marine engineer. But no one would hire her as a Second Engineer. She worked as Fifth Engineer instead—three ranks below what she earned.
Then she went for Chief Engineer certification. She sat the exam in 1929. Failed. Sat it again. Failed. Thirty-seven attempts over a decade. Each time, Britain failed her—not for lack of knowledge, but because she was a woman.
By 1939, she worked odd jobs on land while Britain told her she’d never be good enough. Then World War II erupted. Ships needed engineers. Victoria tried to sign on. Britain said no.
So she took a job on a foreign vessel—SS Bonita, Panama-registered. August 1940, mid-Atlantic. No convoy protection. A German bomber attacked. Bombs screamed down, pipes exploded, water flooded the boilers. Men panicked. Victoria stayed. Alone, in a steaming, flooding engine room, she opened fuel injectors, pushed the engines past their limits.
SS Bonita had never gone faster than 9 knots. Victoria got her to 12.5. The extra speed let the captain zigzag, dodging bombs. Every life was saved. She refused to leave her post until the attack ended.
For her courage, she received the MBE and Lloyd’s War Medal for Bravery at Sea—the first woman engineer ever. After the war, Britain still refused her Chief Engineer certificate. She refused the 38th exam. Instead, she passed the Panamanian Chief Engineer exam—anonymously—on the first attempt.
For the next 17 years, she sailed as Chief Engineer, mostly on run-down foreign vessels. Her last voyage, at 66, was aboard a rusted Hong Kong ship. She retired in 1962 after 40 years at sea. Victoria Drummond died on Christmas Day 1978.
Thirty-seven failures. Decades of discrimination. Doors slammed in her face. Yet she kept showing up, kept proving that skill has no gender. “Because I loved the engines,” she said. Not to prove a point. Not for recognition. She just loved the work.
Victoria Drummond didn’t ask permission. She became an engineer. She stayed one. And when bombs fell, she kept the engines running.
