Forgotten heroes to be remembered
University tribute to fallen students
BY PAUL WARD A RUGBY player, a doctor and a grocer’s son are among names that are to be added to a World War I memorial.
The heroes were former students at Glasgow University but slipped through the net when it came to honouring them in the Memorial Chapel.
A research project uncovered 19 names that will be inscribed on a stone panel in the chapel.
Researchers identified the heroes through digital resources and confirmed their connection to the university using archives.
One of those being honoured is Captain William Campbell Church, who played rugby for Scotland against Wales in 1906.
He started studying mercantile law at the university in 1905 and became a stockbroker. Church enlisted with the 8th Battalion Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) during the war.
He was 32 when he was killed at Gallipoli in 1915.
His body was never found.
Captain William Turner became a doctor in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, after gaining a degree in surgery at the university.
When war broke out, the father of three joined the Royal Army Medical Corps but he contracted pneumonia on active service and had to return home. Turner died in April 1918 at the age of 43.
His name was not recorded originally because he died in hospital in England rather than being killed in action.
Private Archibald James Shanks Morrison from Whithorn, Wigtonshire, was a grocer’s son who matriculated at the university in 1916, at the age of 17. He studied
for a year before joining the King’s Own Scottish Borderers.
He was killed in action in May 1918.
James Crawford Robertson, who was born in Beith, Ayrshire, became a teacher at Shawlands Academy, Glasgow, after graduating from the university,
He served as a corporal with the 17th Battalion Highland Light Infantry and was killed in action in 1916, at the age of 25.
Lance Corporal George Nelson, from Dowanhill, Glasgow, studied medicine at the university but did not graduate as he joined The King’s Own Scottish Borderers in 1915.
He was transferred to the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and died in 1917, at the age of 23, from injuries he received in action.
Katie McDonald, a researcher with the university’s College of Arts, said: “In 1929, when the university originally called for names to be inscribed in the Memorial Chapel, they advertised in newspapers, asking families to come forward with names of the fallen.
“Some people may not have seen the adverts or they could have assumed their son or brother or father’s name was already on record.
“Also, many families may have found it too painful to come forward.”
Katie said digital resources, online research and collaboration with other war memorial projects had uncovered the new names.