Cancel that hamburger (the Torrens System was not German)

Abstract

The view that the Torrens system was merely an adaptation of Hamburg’s mid-nineteenth century system of lands titles registration has lost ground rapidly over the last few years and appears to have been silently abandoned, or at least heavily qualified, even by its former proponents. Now the author has discovered a letter from the supposed German source for the Torrens system which explicitly states that he had nothing to do with its invention — a statement which is corroborated by numerous facts unearthed previously. The view that the Torrens system was merely a German import is therefore finally destroyed. This does not for a moment contradict the well-known fact that Torrens had numerous helpers, of both British and German origin, during his development of the Torrens system.