The Torrens System's Migration to Victoria

2008 will see the 150th anniversary of the invention of South Australia's revolutionary Torrens system of lands titles 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