Nice place for a stroll ... Hyde Park in the early evening. Credit:Kate Geraghty They sat together in Hyde Park late on the night of June 16 and, as she tried to leave to go home, he put his arms around her and kissed her once or twice. He then shot her and himself, apparently in anger over her decision to join the Salvation Army. In the century before the shooting, which made headlines around Australia, Hyde Park was the setting for other dramatic events in its guise as traditional Aboriginal land, a racecourse and a cricket ground. When it was nothing much more than an empty field, Governor Macquarie declared Hyde Park a common in 1810, officially setting it aside as a place for people to meet, talk and contemplate.

Hyde Park's Anzac Memorial. Credit:Janie Barrett Associate Professor Grace Karskens, who teaches Australian history at the University of NSW, said that where the green lawns and flowers beds now lie was where men held rowdy cockfights, others raced their cart horses, and people played cricket in the early 19th century. "They were all into this culture of fighting, racing, drinking, gambling, all that stuff. "Which is all a kind of virile, lively, noisy, rambunctious culture." In January 1830, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser reported: "A famous cricket match on Hyde Park is fixed to take place on Monday afternoon next. This is a manly, healthy recreative exercise. A good afternoon's play is anticipated."

It is a dangerous thing to cross Hyde Park in the day time, unless you walk fast and the risk is so intensified at night that the wonder is anyone attempts it without a suit of mail and a Maxim Before that and up until the early 1800s, indigenous people held traditional contests at the southern end of the park to publicly punish wrongdoers and settle disputes, Dr Karskens said. "Sydney's not just about white people, it's about Aboriginal people as well," she said. City of Sydney historian Lisa Murray said these contests were banned in 1816 and the racecourse was phased out completely from about 1820, an attempt to push the park into a more refined period. A bandstand was later built and military bands would play on Sundays, Dr Murray said.

"The band played in the summer evenings and people came to wander around the park. "It is on a ridge there, so take away all the buildings that are now in east Sydney, and you're getting a lovely seabreeze coming up from the harbour. "So it was quite a pleasant place to be. "You could go there and promenade around and listen to the music. "You could also go there and meet that young man that you saw across at the ball and try and get to talk to him and maybe wander down a path.

The push towards passive activity in the park attracted some more salubrious activities in the early 20th century, Dr Murray said. The Clarence and Richmond Examiner reported in June 1902 that Hyde Park was the property of "thieves and vagabonds". "It is a dangerous thing to cross Hyde Park in the day time, unless you walk fast and the risk is so intensified at night that the wonder is anyone attempts it without a suit of mail and a Maxim." Newspapers reported a woman being found dead in men's clothes, an infant found abandoned near a statue, a man stabbing another in the groin during a fight over a woman, several shootings and complaints of drunks in the park around this time. "A dealer, Claude Osborn, was fined £30 or four months' in gaol for selling beer in Hyde Park without a license," The Advertiser reported in November 1907.

"On Sunday Osborn supplied beer to two plain-clothes policemen, but would not let them see where he got it from." About the same period, the Australian Museum tried to build a zoo in the park, which was later set up where Moore Park now lies. "There was, for a little while, a little menagerie in Hyde Park," Dr Murray said. "Of course all of our Australian flora and fauna were extremely interesting to everyone who was arriving into the colony, so they had kangaroos and parrots and that sort of thing." The Herald reported the death of snake charmer Anthony Kimbel, 38, during a carnival in the park in 1922.

"Kimbel at the time of being bitten protested that there was no danger from the bite, as the fangs had been extracted from the snake. "The onlookers advised Kimbel to go to the hospital for observation, and at first he declined, but later, at the request of the police, he attended at the hospital, where he subsequently collapsed." In the 1920s the entire park was dug up and virtually destroyed to build the underground city circle train line, closing it for about a decade. Newspapers reported that a six-ounce gold nugget was found in the park during the excavations in September 1922, and Broken Hill's Barrier Miner said workers became eager to find more. "Although the first nugget discovered by the city railway excavators in Hyde Park was of pure gold, it is now stated that the subsequent "finds" turned out to be nothing more than melted brass," the report said.

"It is thought possible that some joker scattered these specimens about the ground in order to have some fun at the expense of the workers." Architect Norman Weekes won a design competition in 1926 to create the new park after the train line was completed, and what it looks like today is mostly true to his vision, Dr Murray said. During World War II, the park became a playground for American soldiers. The Barrier Miner described an impromptu dance contest between sailor Ed Drombroski and Sydney girl Rose Heslop in 1941. "Drombroski is champion jitter-bugger of the naval squadron, and he quickly accepted the challenge, saying that Sydney girls could not "jitter" as much as girls in other parts of the world.

"He and Heslop went into the dance. Subsequently Drombroski said, 'You've made me eat my words.'" In the early 1940s, newspapers reported several incidents of American soldiers drinking with young girls in the park and even trying to marry them there. For some servicemen, it was a place to frolic, as The Canberra Times reported in August 1944: "A nude swim in the Pool of Remembrance, Hyde Park, yesterday afternoon, cost an American seamen, Albert Milton-Brackenridge, 22, £1 at the Central Court today." The Anzac Memorial It looks like many other war memorials around the world, but the Hyde Park monument is unique in many ways.

Custodian of the Anzac memorial, Chris Perrin, said that, unlike many others, the war memorial was operational, with doctors on hand in the building to treat ill returned soliders. "There was this memorial dedicated to those that didn't come home and those that had paid the supreme sacrifice," Mr Perrin said. "Then there were areas within the memorial working for those that did come home, but still required help and assistance. "There were doctors there, the limbless soldiers used to come in and throw their [artificial] limbs on the table and get a tweak or get a new arm or a new leg or get it mended." The clinics mostly wound up in the 1970s and '80s, but the office of the TB Sailors, Soliders and Airmen Association remains in the building.

The Hyde Park memorial - designed by C. Bruce Dellit and completed in 1934 - also strays from the tradition of listing soldiers' names on the wall. Even those who laid the foundation stones are named only as a soldier and a citizen. "Everybody knew people were lying about their age and using wrong names and all sorts of things to get in [to the army]," Mr Perrin said. "So they decided that the best way to do it was not to put anyone's name on it." Women are also featured prominently on the war memorial, including in Rayner Hoff's sculpture Sacrifice, which depicts a naked soldier dead on his shield supported by a group of females. "They represent the people left to carry the burden of the loss of war," Mr Perrin said.

"His mother, his sister and you can find his wife because she'll be the one carrying the baby which is the next generation. "So the women carried the burden of war, yet still had to continue ... bringing up Australia and the next generation of warrior, as it turned out." Today These days, Hyde Park is a green sanctuary filled with workers escaping the office on their lunch break, wandering tourists, and picnicking families. For decades it has also provided shelter to homeless people, which a City of Sydney council spokeswoman said could vary from a few to as many as 20.

The park is attractive to homeless people because it is pleasant during the day and offers shelter in bad weather. "The park offers a sense of safety compared to some other areas - because it's quite busy a lot of the time," the spokeswoman said. "Homeless people aren't hassled in the park by police or council staff if they're not doing the wrong thing and many rough sleepers have a friendly relationship with council and contract staff." Stan Poulson, the president of the TB Sailors, Soliders and Airmen Association who visits the park office about twice a week, said the park is now looking better than ever. "It's a beautiful park, I will say it's well looked after," the 85-year-old said.

"It's a lovely atmosphere in that park, it's very tranquil. "It's a new world now, you see people around there laying around in the grass half-dressed. "You wouldn't have seen that in the old days." The park is also a regular site for cultural events and protests, including the 2003 anti-war protest when 250,000 people marched in Sydney. One protester, Bruce Ingrey, wrote to the Herald the day after, addressing the apparent contradiction of protesting against war in the same place he would go to mark Anzac Day.

"In most, if not all, of the anti-war protests of the past, this seeming contradiction may have made me slightly unique," he wrote. "On Sunday, however, I did not feel slightly out of place; in fact when I looked around I saw thousands of people exactly like myself." With all this, the manicured park remains in the spirit Governor Macquarie intended, Dr Murray said. Loading "It's the people's park."