THE DARING DRUMMONDS

By Brad Mengel

Recently I was rereading Tarzan Alive when I was struck by an interesting area where Farmer had left a gap. Whilst discussing the Korak time problem Farmer proposes that Korak was in fact John Drummond, brother of Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond. Farmers says that Hugh could not supervise his brother or give him the affection he needed ( Farmer notes they were made orphans in 1912 and were 20 and 14 respectively) so Tarzan and Jane their second cousins decided to adopt young John.

Later, on p 284, Farmer states that John Drummond was one of Bulldog Drummond's seven siblings.

Naturally I scoured both Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life for references to these siblings and their descendants. I was unable to locate any of them. So I then started to look for myself.

The first problem I discovered was what ages where these other siblings? For if they were older then why did they not take in John Drummond? And if they were younger who took them in? Further research then showed that Hugh and John where the youngest of the siblings and that most of these siblings had young children of their own and Hugh whist trying to come to a decision received the offer by Tarzan. Perhaps seeing the close bond and similarity of spirit between the Tarzan and John, Hugh immediately accepted offer. This caused a minor rift in the family but one that would later be healed and many of Hugh's nephews would seem to have emulated him.

At this point I have located all but one of Hugh's siblings through their descendants and will detail them in the approximate order of ages.

The eldest sister Lorna (after her mother's ancestor) was born circa 1882 and later married the Earl of Quorn and she had one son. This son bore an incredible resemblance to his Uncle Hugh and is often referred to as "handsomely ugly" and his strength seems comparable. He is the Hon Timothy Overbury Standish better known as Tiger Standish. Tiger is the best operative of the Branch of British Intelligence known as Y 1 and is married to Sonia. (see the series by Sydney Horler).

His cousin Ronald Standish established himself as a private detective and in a few instances worked with Bulldog Drummond. (character created by Sapper)

At this stage I should mention that there is the possibility that both Ronald and Tiger may in fact also be relatives of the Phantom who at one time was referred to as Christopher Standish. Whilst Lee Falk says that The Phantom's real name has always been Christopher "Kit" Walker, my fellow researcher Dennis Power has suggested the following scenario "Christopher Walker married into the Standish family, a branch related to Tiger perhaps, but the father was a moderately wealthy man with a single daughter for an heir, he did not want his family name to die out so he requested that Christopher Walker take his family name in return he would inherit property and ships. So he became Christopher Walker-Standish. His son and other heirs usually dropped the hyphenated part of the name but would use it when it was necessary. Which could give rise to both Walker and Standish members of the family" My take is that this Phantom had two sons the elder took the name Kit Walker and became the Phantom the younger was known under the Standish name and looked after his Grandfathers business one of his descendants later became the first Earl of Quorn.

The second daughter Roberta was born circa 1883 and she married a Chandos who was a descendant of Sir John Chandos who was the Knight Sir Nigel Loring squired under (Sir Nigel and The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) And their son was Richard William Chandos better known as Bill. Chandos seems to inherited the Drummond strength if not the size and had ten adventures with Jonah Mansel who also appeared in several books with his cousins the Pleydells (The Berry Books and the Chandos Books by Donford Yates)

The next daughter Alice was born circa 1884 married a Frost. Their son Gerald Frost became a noted reporter who retired to become a noted crime fiction writer. But he soon found that that life was boring and under the nickname Nighthawk began his own fight against crime. (Series by Sydney Horler) Gerald later had son who he named William. William became known by the nickname Jack, (Jack Frost get it?). Jack seems to have taken after his mother's family as he is short dumpy man but he is a first rate investigator. After joining the British police he rose to the rank of Detective Inspector in the Homicide Branch. His cases have been turned into a TV series called A Touch of Frost.

The third daughter I uncovered was born circa 1886 and was named Penelope. Penny then married a Dawlish and had one son Patrick Dawlish. Patrick is frequently described a a blond giant and worked in MI5 though he appears to have been loaned to MI6 for a number of operation behind enemy lines in WW2. He later retired to be with his wife Felicity but gradually became an unofficial private eye and later high up in Scotland Yard. (series by John Creasy writing as Gordon Ashe)

Their first son was born circa 1888 and was named William Drummond after his Grandfather. William was interested in flying and became one of the first pilots in WW1 and quickly gained the nickname of Ace. It was William who taught his brother John to fly and arranged for him to be transferred from the Hallamshire Rifles to the Flying Corps. He left the Air Corps to have globe hopping adventures with his mechanic Jerry. (Ace Drummond Cartoon Strip and movie serial) Ace then rejoined the Royal Air Force and fought in World War two. At some point he had son named Stephen. Stephen later joined the group known as Knight Errant Limited for it's last two years of operation (1960-1961). This group was founded by Adam Knight (the older brother of Emma Peel), Liz Parrish and Peter Parker in 1959. This Parker is not Spiderman but rather is the son of Chief Inspector Charles Parker and Mary Wimsey. (Knight Errant TV series)

The second son was Hugh Drummond born 1892. In 1919 Hugh met Phyllis Benton and they married and they had two sons. The first Roger married and moved to America and had one son Robert. Robert attends Princeton and divides his time between America and England where he stays with his uncle. The second son Hugh Junior joined the Army and fought in Korea where he was a P.O.W. later he was an insurance investigator. Two of his adventures from this period were made in the films Deadlier than the Male and Some Girls Do (67 and 69 respectively) In these two adventures Hugh battles a man calling himself Carl Peterson. When given this name neither Hugh or Robert react leading me to speculate that he was found out later to be Carl Junior and this was added in to add interest to the films. If Farmer is correct in his statement that Irma Peterson was both the daughter and lover of Carl then Carl Jr. may be not only be the son but also the grandson of the original whom he matches in his skill at disguises.

At this point I should add another possibility my fellow researcher Win Eckert in his excellent article The Malevolent Moriartys suggested rather than actually having a son Hugh Jr. it was in fact the original Bulldog Drummond disguising the fact that he had received Kavaru from his younger brother who we are discussing next.

The final son of Roger Drummond and Lorena Ridd was John who was born in 1898. John was adopted by Lord and Lady Greystoke in 1912 and was henceforth known as John Drummond-Clayton. During his adventure that was written up by Edgar Rice Burroughs as The Son of Tarzan, John was given the Mangani name of Korak (The Killer) and he met and later married Meriem. They had a son Armand John (please note that I am following the lead of J.T. Edson and reversing first and middle names to avoid confusion) who married Heather ___________. Together the couple was part of a group known as Group Thirteen in WW2. This espionage group is so secret that the British Government still refuses to acknowledge its existence. The couple had one daughter Dawn Drummond-Clayton who after be transported to the planet Zillikan was married to her boyhood companion James Allenvale "Bunduki" Gunn. Korak, Armand and their wives currently reside in Pellucidar

Strictly speaking the next few members of the family are slightly outside the original scope of the article but after I discovered them during the course of the research for this article it seemed such a shame to leave them out so here they are.

There are some references to a Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond who adventured in America this appears to be a cousin of the original who borrowed some of his cousin's prestige when he moved overseas. He had one son Chester. This son Chester shortened the last name to Drumm and set himself up as a private eye. (Bulldog Drummond Radio show and Chester Drumm series by Stephen Marlowe)

It appears that Roger Drummond had a younger sister who married a man by the name of Maitland and they had one son James "Jim" Maitland. (The James Maitland Series of Books by Sapper)

I also uncovered some new links to Hugh's second cousin Richard Hannay. As you will recall Hannay is the son of Colina Drummond the much younger sister of William Drummond, the grandfather of Hugh. My research has shown that Hannay was born in 1877 when his mother was twenty. After six years Colina had an affair with another man which led Arthur Hannay to take his son to South Africa. His mother was distraught and broke off the affair and attempted to reconcile with her husband and see her son but Arthur Hannay would never take her back.

Colina after five years eventually remarried. She married a wealthy American by the name of Renwick and in 1890 and had a son to him, John Renwick. Renny, as the boy became known, inherited the Drummond size and strength but his large hands must have come from his father's side of the family. When Renny was seven, his mother received a message from her elder son that his father had passed away and that he would like to see her. Colina rushed to South Africa and was reconciled with Richard who was just starting as an engineer. Young Renny was in hero worship and immediately decided to become an engineer. Despite this it appears that the brothers were never close and it appears that they never mentioned the connection to their biographers but both men had adventurous descendants.

Richard Hannay had one son Peter John Hannay (The Three Hostages and The Island of Sheep by John Buchan) It appears that in later life to avoid attention from enemies of his father or of his own Peter changed his surname to Duffy and settled down to married life and had two children. (at this stage aside from The Island of Sheep it is unclear if Peter went into an adventurous career of his own) The eldest child Marion apparently knew nothing of her father and grandfather's adventurous careers, whereas her younger brother Richard, who was named for his grandfather was told of these things. Marion went on to have a family of her own after marrying James Lane and accountant and had one son Stephen Lane. Richard on the other hand became an engineer just like his grandfather as well as having many adventures. At around age thirty Richard Duffy retired from engineering a moved in with his sister. But his past caught up with him and both he and his nephew have been caught up in adventures. Richard and Stephen are aided in their adventures by their high tech unique computerised Watches (apparently the designer was a former member of The Foundation for Law and Government) ( Race Against Time series by J. J. Fortune)

According to my fellow researcher Kevin Breen, Renny in his later life married a Chinese woman and had one daughter Sydney Fox.

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The Daring Drummonds was written for the sole purposes of entertainment and information. All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2000 by the author, Brad Mengel. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.