The spread of the Torrens system is an important story in the migration of legal institutions. The chapter for Victoria is told in
The Torrens System's Migration to Victoria, posted by
Greg Taylor, Monash University Faculty of Law, and published in
Monash University Law Review 33 (2007). Here is the abstract:
2008 will see the 150th anniversary of the invention of South Australia's revolutionary Torrens system of lands title registration. it quickly spread from its home to the other Australian colonies. it was introduced in Victoria in October 1862, four-and-a-half years after its adoption in South Australia. While the adoption of the Torrens system in Victoria may, from this historical distance, seem rapid and thus inevitable, it was not without considerable effort that the proponents of the Torrens system in Victoria were able to overcome the tenacious opposition to its introduction from certain lawyers. This article traces the seven stages in the adoption of Torrens in Victoria and shows that the Torrens system succeeded because it was truly the people's cause in Victoria, as it had been in its South Australian home.
Image Credit: Sir Robert Torrens
