[6][2][7] It is believed that the southern end of Hyde Park, where the ANZAC Memorial is located, was used as a "contest ground" for staging combative trials between Aboriginal warriors, watched avidly by the British in the early days of the colony.

The Anzacs formed part of the expeditionary force organised by Britain and France to invade the Gallipoli Peninsula and clear the Dardanelles Straits for the British Navy.

Australians were successfully used as shock troops at Ypres, Amiens, Mont St Quentin and Peronne, and took a leading part in breaking through the Hindenburg Line, in their last major offensive.

[10][2] From an Australian population of around four and a half million, enlistments in the army and navy numbered 416,809, a total that represents one-half of the men of military age in Australia at that time.

The original objectives of the day of commemoration were to remember dead comrades, induce young men to enlist and collect money for an ANZAC Memorial monument.

Assisted by architect Raymond McGrath, Weekes produced a plan with two axial avenues running north -south and east–west, the latter being in line with the transept of St Mary's Cathedral.

Created by Francois Sicard, winner of the Prix de Rome in 1891, the Public Trustee requested that it be installed at the site of Weekes' proposed column at the northern end of Hyde Park.

Around 1925 the Lang Labor government responded to the urging of the NSW RSSILA by donating 10,000 pounds for a cenotaph in Martin Place, near where wartime appeals and recruitment rallies had been held.

[10][2] Hoff gave considerable prominence to the female contributors to the war effort in the ANZAC Memorial, including the women who lost their fathers, husbands and sons.

These professionals and artisans included structural engineers RS Morris & Co Ltd, masons Melocco Bros Ltd who carved the wreath around the Well of Contemplation, Messrs Loveridge and Hudson Ltd who prepared the granite facing on the outside walls, JC Goodwin and Co Ltd who supplied the amber glass, Art Glass Ltd, which completed the sandblasting, and T. Grounds and Sons who manufactured the stone figures on the buttresses and the funerary urns to Hoff's design.

[10][2] In 1932 Dellit incorporated four stones from battlefields at Gallipoli, France, Palestine and New Guinea into the floors of the niches in the Hall of Memory in the form of the AIF Rising Sun.

The experts chose a simple statement submitted by Hook, Green and Bean to mark the dedication of the building, stating, "This Memorial was opened by a son of the King on 24th November 1934".

[10][2] By the mid 1930s the ex-servicemen's offices in the ANZAC Memorial were already overcrowded, and the situation became critical when veterans from World War II began accessing the building for services in the 1940s.

The RSL gained permission to extend its rooms into the Assembly Hall in 1942 but its situation was not significantly improved until it moved to nearby Anzac House in College Street in 1957.

Attempts to physically make changes and add additional symbols to reflect this and later wars did not proceed due to difficulties envisaging how this might be achieved without compromising the design.

The trustees made space for this new symbol by removing the door to the Archives Room and commissioning the Australian Gas Light Company Limited (AGL) to install the burner which is currently lit 8 hours a day between 9 am and 5 pm.

[19][20] The building is constructed of concrete, with an exterior cladding of pink granite, and consists of a massed square superstructure with typically Art Deco setbacks and buttresses, punctuated on each side by a large arched window of yellow stained glass, and crowned with a ziggurat-inspired stepped roof.

The interior is largely faced in white marble, and features a domed ceiling adorned with 120,000 gold stars – one for each of those men and women from New South Wales who served during World War I.

Two other even more controversial figural sculptures designed by Hoff—one featuring a naked female figure—were never installed on the eastern and western faces of the structure as intended, partly as a result of opposition from high ranking representatives of the Catholic Church.

The building's exterior is adorned with several bronze friezes, carved granite relief panels and twenty monumental stone figural sculptures symbolising military personnel, also by Hoff.

The ground floor provides the visual base of the building form and is fenestrated with timber framed double hung windows and bronze security grilles.

These statues include a Naval Signaller, Aviator, Nurse and Lewis Gunner fabricated from cast stone to resemble the granite facing of the building "so they should have the effect of having been hewn out of the moment rather than placed thereon".

Above all this is the high soaring dome of the ceiling covered with 120,000 stars, one for every man and woman in NSW who served in the Great War, made of plaster of paris and painted gold leaf.

The items displayed in the museum collection were donated by the public and they include personal letters, medals, books, diaries, uniforms, souvenirs, relics and banners relating to the various conflicts in which Australians were involved.

[2] Located opposite the entry vestibule on the eastern side of the memorial, the Assembly Hall was originally designed as a large open space used for meetings and forums by the different building occupants.

The panels of the screen are made of safety glass etched with designs that continue the original concept of the symbolic use of building elements to reinforce the memorial's purpose.

[2] As at 19 September 2011, The ANZAC Memorial, completed in 1934, is of historical significance to the State for its embodiment of the collective grief of the people of NSW at the loss of Australian servicemen and women since World War I.

The result of an outstanding creative collaboration between architect Bruce Dellit and sculptor Rayner Hoff, it contains complex symbolic embellishments that reinforce and enhance the commemorative meanings of the building.

The ANZAC Memorial in Hyde Park is of historical significance to the State as an embodiment of the collective grief felt by the people of New South Wales at the loss of Australian servicemen at Gallipoli and other conflicts since then.

It is the result of an outstanding creative collaboration between architect Bruce Dellit and sculptor Rayner Hoff and contains complex symbolic embellishments that reinforce and enhance the commemorative meanings of the building.