In memory of service here and abroad

White crosses in the Field of Remembrance in Cranmer Square bear the names of four of the six Christchurch City Council staff killed in World War I.

Council Chief Executive Karleen Edwards has paid tribute to the men with a visit to the field this week to place poppies on their remembrance crosses.

Karleen Edwards places a poppy on the remembrance cross for Lieutenant Harry Wright.

A Council driver and a municipal clerk were among the early casualties, with Private Albert Highsted, 33, dying at Gallipoli and Lieutenant Harry Wright, 24, killed in action on Chunuk Bair.

Both men were members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force Canterbury Infantry Regiment.

Two members of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade are also represented with markers in Cranmer Square following their deaths in France.

Rifleman Albert Wilson, 31, an Assistant Sexton at Linwood Cemetery, was killed in action in the Battle of the Somme, northern France, on March 29, 1918.

Rifleman William Christie, 35, a Council carpenter, was killed in action on 29 July 1918.

They are among the 4389 crosses and one Star of David in Cranmer Square that graphically illustrate the heavy losses suffered by Canterbury families.

Two other Council workers, Rifleman Thomas Raxworthy, 23, a driver, and Private William Esselborn, 28, an Inspector of Nuisance, died in the Great War.

They are believed to have been honoured in other areas.

Rifleman Raxworthy, a member of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, was killed in the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916.

Private Esselborn, a member of the Wellington Regiment, was killed in action in the Battle of Passchendaele on 4 October 1917.