Torrens Park, South Australia Torrens Park, South Australia Torrens Park is a mainly residential inner-southern suburb of Adelaide, incorporating some of the foothills and adjacent to the original "Mitcham Village". The suburb is in the City of Mitcham local government area, the South Australian House of Assembly electoral district of Waite and the Australian House of Representatives Division of Boothby. The name was formally submitted for approval in 1945. Torrens Park is named after Sir Robert Torrens, the third Premier of South Australia and instigator of the Torrens title land title system. Torrens Park contained "Torrens Park Estate", the residence of Sir Robert Torrens,
River Torrens after him. In 1867, prison labour from Adelaide Gaol was used to build a wooden dam near the site of the current weir. The dam was poorly constructed and almost immediately the Torrens washed it away. Construction of a permanent concrete weir was begun in November 1880 and completed, at a cost of £7,000, in 1881. The sluice gates were closed to begin filling the Torrens Lake on 1 July 1881. At the lake's official opening on 21 July 1881 an estimated 40,000, almost the entire population of Adelaide, attended. During the 1889 flood, the weir was overwhelmed, its gates