on 18 June 1836 instructed that the site of the first town be divided into 1,000 sections of an acre each. In early 1837, William Light proposed to the Resident Commissioner James Hurtle Fisher that the figure-eight of open space, which Light later referred to as "Adelaide Park", be reserved as "Park grounds". Light drew up a plan that included south of the River Torrens and north of the river. In addition, he included of city squares: Hindmarsh, Hurtle, Light, Whitmore and Wellington Squares (each comprising six acres), Victoria Square (eight acres), four one-acre Public Reserves (with frontages to Victoria Square), and for the Park Lands. Adelaide's characteristic geometrical grid pattern is not unique: apart from earlier precedents going back to ancient Greece, it follows part of a series of rules created by Spanish planners for their colonial cities, known as the "Law of the Indies". They included the grid pattern with a main thoroughfare, centred around a main square. There are many historical precedents for five squares, including Philadelphia in America, designed in 1682 by surveyor Thomas Holme. There are however no records showing that Light deliberately copied any cities or rules for planning. In 1838 the Colonization Commissioners for South Australia authorised South Australia's Resident Commissioner to purchase the Adelaide Park Lands, and these instructions were carried out in South Australia in 1839. By 1839 the Park Lands were threatened by extensive timber cutting, rubbish dumping, brick-making, quarrying, squatting, and grazing. To check this, a body of special constables was instituted on 9 October 1839 by George Gawler and Superintendent Henry Inman. Inman appointed Nick Boys Bull (-1846), formerly a police sub-inspector, as Keeper of the Park Lands. Bull led an initial team of six park rangers, most being convalescent migrants thrown on government support. This dropped to two by 1840, then back to four by June 1841. Pay and rations were provided by the police department. Since 1852, the areas of the Park Lands placed in the custodianship of the municipal corporation have been managed and maintained by the Adelaide City Council. Public use of the Park Lands was controlled by a ranger who patrolled the parks, regulating sporting and recreational activities in the parks and supervising the depasturing of stock grazing there. A variety of now absent wildlife was still present in the Park Lands in the late 1800s, with the Greater Bilby reported as still