John Ranking

Having coxed in fours and eights during his time at Cheltenham School, John Ranking continued in that role after going to Pembroke College, Cambridge. He took part in Boat Race trials in 1929, and again seven years later, where he temporarily deputised for Noel Duckworth. Ranking did, however, become a double Blue in between, coxing the victorious crews in 1931 and 1932. The crew then won the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley as members of the Leander Club and, at the Los Angeles Olympics that year, they finished fourth.

Ranking was the son of a Tunbridge Wells doctor, and followed in both his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps into the medical profession. Ranking completed his medical training at London’s St. Thomas’s Hospital after university. He held house positions at St.Thomas’s and was also the house-physician at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. During World War II, Ranking was a medical specialist in the Royal Army Medical Corps and reached the rank of temporary major. He later became a consultant at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells where he worked until his sudden death in 1959 at 49-years-of-age.