In 1748 he married Esther, the daughter of his father's fourth wife from an earlier marriage to soapmaker John Pedley of London.

Assisted by Joseph Banks, John Fothergill, and other friends, he resumed business but retired in 1789 to devote all his time to entomology.

Around 1797 the family moved to Turnham Green but Drury began to face ill health starting with stones in his bladder.

He, has been there almost three years but has sent nothing over except insects, a circumstance which astonishes us, for his patrons expected a great variety of subjects long before this in ye different branches of Natural History.

[9]From 1770 to 1782, he published the three-part Illustrations of Natural History, Wherein are Exhibited Upwards of 240 Figures of Exotic Insects, with copperplates by Moses Harris and Peter Mazell.

In the letters, detailed accounts of prices and publishing techniques are provided which shed light on Britain's early printing industry.

[7] The original drawings for this book, by Moses Harris and Mary Gartside, were recently rediscovered in rural Virginia, USA.

Da Costa had drawings of the beetle made by Moses Harris but before it could be published he was embroiled in an embezzlement scandal in the Royal Society which led to a prison term.

Hunter was understandably angry with what he saw as "theft" and Drury subsequently made a special search for another specimen of the beetle.

All the specimens of which it is composed, are in the highest and most exquisite state of preservation, such an extensive collection can be supposed to be, and a very considerable number are unique, such as are not to be found in any other Cabinet whatever, and of considerable value; many of which, coming from countries exceedingly unhealthy, where the collectors, in procuring them, have perished by the severity of the climate, give but little room to expect any duplicate will ever be obtained during the present age; and the learned quotations that have been taken from it by those celebrated authors Linnaeus and Fabricius, in all their late editions, are incontestable proofs of the high degrees of estimation they entertained of it.After his death, the collections were sold in a three-day auction by King and Lochee and earned £614 8s.

[14][15] Drury's illustrations, mostly by Moses Harris, were published in three volumes (1770, 1773, 1782), and the original paintings, inherited through his descendants, were sold at auction in London in March 1964.