City of Newcastle RSL Sub Branch president Ken Fayle lit the Anzac flame before lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes spoke of the struggles many servicemen faced immediately after World War I.

"One hundred years ago, World War I had been finished for just six months, but for so many the battles were still raging," Cr Nelmes said while wearing the medals of her husband's great-grandfather, Reginald Arthur Nelmes, who died at the age of 35 on Hill 60 at Gallipoli's Suvla Bay.

"In France and Flanders, thousands of men waited to be sent back to England, and while they were waiting they were put to work."

As the dawn service concluded, commemorators wandered back through the centre of the city, queuing for coffee, pulling up a stool at their local bar, ahead of the second Newcastle service at Civic Park.

Hundreds lined King Street, filing back toward Hunter Street mall, as the parade formed up and made its way to the steady beat and wail of the pipe band toward cenotaph.