Life
1814-1884; b. Cork; oldest son of Robert Torrens (1780-1864) and his wife Charity Herbert Chute; raised in Irish-speaking Kerry, and friendly with son of Daniel O’Connell in childhood and college; ed. TCD; entered custom service in London; appt. collector of customs, S. Australia, arriving at Adelaide, 1 Jan. 1841; author of ‘Torrens Act’, 1858, sustituting title by public registration for old conveyancing system; sought to raise cost of emigration of poor to Australia from local rates, but overborne by Gladstone, 1872; knighted 1872; first premier of S. Australia and colonial treasurer 1857, MP Cambridge 1868, GCMG 1884.
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Criticism
A. N. Jeffares, ‘Torrens: An Irishman in South Australia’, in Images of Invention: Essays on Irish Writing [Irish Literary Studies 46] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1996), p.188-200;
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