Victor Drummond-Fraser

Bank: Manchester & Liverpool District Banking Co

Place of work:  Head Office, Manchester

Died:  3 June 1915

Victor Murray Drummond-Fraser was born in 1894, the elder son of the banker Drummond (later Sir Drummond) Drummond-Fraser. He was educated at educated at Tan-y-Bryn, Llandudno, and at Charterhouse, where he was a cadet in the Officers' Training Force.

In October 1914 Drummond-Fraser went to work for Manchester & Liverpool District Banking Co at its Manchester head office, where his father was manager (and later managing director). He joined the debating society of Manchester & District Bankers' Institute, and in 1914 won the Institute's Junior Prize for an essay on 'compulsory arbitration in trade disputes'.

In November 1914 Drummond-Fraser was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Reserve Battalion, the Cheshire Regiment. He was initially stationed at Hale, where he took an active part in recruiting for the battalion. He then went with the battalion to Aberystwyth, Cambridge and Northampton, but left it on 24 April 1915 to join the 5th Battalion of the Cheshires, who were serving at the Front, near Ypres. On the night of 2-3 June he was fixing wire entanglements in front of the trenches when he was shot just above the heart. There was some difficulty in retrieving him because he fell in a marsh, but he was sent to a dressing-station within half an hour. The full force of the bullet was broken by a small Greek New Testament and cigarette case in his pocket, but the wound proved fatal and he died following day. He was 21 years old. His only brother Haddo was killed in 1918, also while serving in the Cheshire Regiment.