 The mount (and nearby town) was named later after Robert Torrens, one of South Australia's founding fathers, as chairman of the South Australian Colonisation Commission, in likelihood because the Angas Creek which flows down the hill is a minor tributary of the Torrens River.The town was developed by the Dunn family in the early 1840s.Then known as Barton Springs, it incorporated a farmhouse, smithy, stables and the Cornish Arms Inn.