Hyde Park, a residential suburb, is three km south-west of central Townsville. It was named after the Hyde Park estate, owned by William Clayton, a chemist, who established the Hyde Park brickworks in the mid-1880s. The brickworks were north-west of the intersection of Bayswater and Charters Towers Roads.
By 1918, when Hyde Park was transferred from Thuringowa Shire to Townsville City, there were scattered houses and an emerging industrial area; a gas works was opened in Virgil Street in 1919. St Margaret Mary's convent school was opened in the 'Woodlands' home in Hyde Park, and later moved to the site of the Catholic church in Charters Towers Road. A girls' college was added in 1963. A State primary school was opened in 1924.
Charters Towers Road became the commercial and civic precinct, with shops, the Regent Cinema, and Church of Christ and Presbyterian churches. An industrial precinct grew south east of the corner of Kings Road and Woolcock Street, a process started with the gasworks. The area was redeveloped as the Hyde Park shopping centre. In 1937 the Park Haven Private Hospital was opened in Bayswater Road, and in 1999 it was upgraded to the 80 bed Wesley hospital.
Hyde Park has largely an inter-war housing stock, characterised by high-set Queenslanders and Californian bungalows. Classified in the 1970s as mainly a lower-income, blue-collar area, Hyde Park's average income by 2001 was slightly above the average for greater Townsville. The Charters Towers Road shopping area, shared with Hermit Park, was refurbished in the early 2000s.
Hyde Park's census populations have been:
| Census Date | Population |
|---|---|
| 1986 | 2548 |
| 2001 | *2241 |
| 2006 | 1187 |
| 2011 | 1426 |
