THE names of 62 servicemen who died early in the First World War have been read out by members of the city's Gild of Freemen by outside a York church.

The ceremony took place outside All Saints Church in Pavement, and involved names listed in The King’s Book Of York Heroes at York Minster, which features the names, biographies and photographs of 1,471 York men and women killed in service during the conflict.

There will be daily public readings across the city over the next six weeks, with the final 20 names read out on November 11 to mark the centenary of the Armistice, and All Saints was chosen as the first.

With shoppers stopping to watch, the names were read out by Gild members Tom Gibson, Andrea Smith, Sara Giles, Eileen Forth, Hazel Hague, Keith Isaac and Brenda Batty.

The casualties dated from October 15, 1914, when 16-year-old Alfred Maddison died, to April 15, 1915, when William Lowther, 19, was killed.