William Eugene Drummond (March 28, 1876 – September 13, 1948) was a Chicago Prairie School architect.
He was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of carpenter and cabinet maker Eugene Drummond and his wife Ida Marietta Lozier. The family relocated from Newark to Chicago in 1886; William was ten. The Drummonds settled on the West Side of Chicago, in Austin, at 813 Central Avenue. William Drummond grew up in the village of Austin and attended the Austin public schools. The Drummond family house is standing as ot underwent at the hands of William and Eugene. William learned much in the remodeling of the family house. He and his father built the present house around and over the old house, with the family still living in it. The family owned the house until 1966. William was fifteen years older than his brother Frank; there were five girls between them. All seven Drummond children grew up in the village of Austin.
William Drummond was admitted to the University of Illinois School of Architecture in 1899, at the same time that fellow Prairie School architect Walter Burley Griffin was attending there. However, financial difficulties forced Drummond leave after one year.
Thereafter, Drummond began working in Chicago in the firm of architect Louis Sullivan. Several months later, he went to work for Frank Lloyd Wright. Drummond would serve as the chief draftsman for several well-known Wright’s commissions, including the home of Edwin and Mamah Borthwick Cheney in Oak Park, the Frederick Robie House in Chicago, the Susan Lawrence Dana House in Springfield, IL, and the Larkin Company Administration Building in Buffalo. Drummond obtained his architect’s license in 1901. In the years 1901–1905 he worked for Wright part-time while also working full-time for Richard E. Schmidt (1901–1902) and Daniel H. Burnham (1903–1905). Drummond returned to full-time employment with Wright from 1905 to 1909, when disagreement about pay caused him to leave Wright’s studio. But Drummond was a key figure in Wright’s studio during its most productive Prairie years. As Wright’s son, John, relates: