He was the eldest son of the Rev Charles Martin Torlesse, who was on the management committee of the Canterbury Association.

[2] Aged 16, Torlesse started a survey cadetship under his uncle Arthur Wakefield for the New Zealand Company in Nelson.

He stayed in Nelson from 1841 and returned to England in 1843, after his uncle was killed in the Wairau Affray.

In 1849 he was joined by survey assistant, John Cowell Boys, who had also been a part of the Nelson party in 1841.

[7] His brother Henry Torlesse came to New Zealand in early 1853 on the Minerva and married Elizabeth Revell, a fellow passenger on that journey.