George Drummond (politician)

[2] He was educated at the High School in Edinburgh and began his career as an accountant, working on the financial details of the 1707 Act of Union at 18.

During the malt tax riots in Glasgow, an apprentice named Andrew Millar,directly challenged Drummond's authority by printing opposition material in Leith, outside the council of Edinburgh's jurisdiction.

He raised funds to build the Royal Infirmary, designed by William Adam in 1738, which quickly became one of the world's foremost teaching hospitals.

In 1766 he persuaded the Town Council to fund an ambitious plan for a grand extension to the city on its north side and to hold a competition for the design.

In 1759, Drummond also began the decades-long draining of the insanitary Nor' Loch and identified the need for the North Bridge as the gateway of the New Town, laying its foundation stone in 1763.

It was bought by General John Scott after Drummond's death and redeveloped as a substantial villa known as Bellevue House or Lodge.