A SERVICE is to be held to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of a Glasgow University student who was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Captain Harry Ranken, who was in the Royal Army Medical Corps, was the first hero from the city to receive the award.
On September 20, 1914, he was in France and was severely wounded in the leg while attending to his patients under a hail of rifle fire and shrapnel.
Captain Ranken bound up his leg to stop the bleeding and continued to dress the wounds of other men, sacrificing his own chance of survival.
He finally allowed himself to be carried off the battlefield but his wounds were so severe he died on September 25 - just 59 days after the start of the war.
The Glasgow-born medic was the eldest son of the Rev Henry Ranken, the minister of Irvine Old Parish Church.
On leaving university he was a resident house surgeon and physician at the city's Western Infirmary.
Glasgow University is holding a service of remembrance in the University Chapel on the 25th and a white cross will be planted in the university's Garden of Remembrance.
Over the next four years, a cross will be placed on the anniversary of the deaths of each student on the university Roll of Honour.
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