Background
He was born in Derry, the third child of the Reverend Thomas Torrens and his wife Elizabeth Curry. The were of Swedish origin, and were probably descended from a Swedish officer who came to Ireland in 1689 in the army of William III of England.
Education
He graduated from the University of Dublin in 1795, entered Middle Temple the following year and was called to the Bar in 1798.
Career
He enjoyed a high reputation for legal ability and integrity, and, despite occasional complaints about his physical infirmity, he remained on the Bench into extreme old age. They were a numerous family with a tendency to intermarry, so that the tree can be difficult to untangle. Little is known of Robert Torrens"s schooldays.
He became King"s Counsel in 1817 and Third Serjeant in 1822.
In 1822 he was appointed under the Insurrection Acting of 1807 as the Commissioner for County Limerick, with the aim of dealing with the serious problem of agrarian violence in that county. As a judge he was well-regarded.
Even Daniel O"Connell, no friend to the Irish Bench in general, seems to have thought well of him, although on one occasion he gravely embarrassed the judge by suggesting that he had shown bias against a Catholic priest. He was the junior judge at the Doneraile conspiracy trials of 1829 where O"Connell secured the acquittal of most of the accused.
Both judges, Torrens and Richard Pennefather, have been highly praised for their impartial conduct of the trials.
In 1855-1856 Torrens was one of several Irish judges who was threatened with removal from office by the House of Commons as being too old or inform to fulfill their duties properly. The Irish Bar strongly opposed his removal from office: the consensus was that although he was eighty years of age, Torrens was an exceptionally conscientious and hard-working judge. Torrens protested strongly at the suggestion that he was unfit for office, but in the event he died suddenly at his country house, Derrynoid Lodge, just after the spring assizes in 1856.