They diversified into loans from their warehouses to Upper Canadian merchants and developed the Montreal & Quebec Steamboat Company, which at first competed with and then joined forces with John Molson.

The Torrances were a major driving force with the Molsons in the creation of the St Lawrence Steamboat Services.

He was also a director of the St Lawrence and Ottawa Grand Junction Railroad Company, chartered in 1850, to extend the Montreal and Lachine line to Prescott, Canada West.

Torrance strongly supported the Montreal Annexation Manifesto, which cost him his commission as a Major in the militia.

Through his wife's influence, he became a Methodist in later life and strongly supported his church as well as a variety of literary and educational associations.

He was a life governor of the Montreal General Hospital and a founder and trustee of the Mount Royal Cemetery.

He made gifts to McGill University including a fund for a gold medal in law as a memorial to his wife.

St. Antoine Hall was also famous for its high brick walls and the great gate which according to family tradition closed firmly at 10 p.m. Torrance's granddaughter, Evelyn (Galt) Springett (a god-daughter of Sir George-Étienne Cartier) remembered it as "a lovely place... great shady trees, and in summer the horse chestnuts were alive with humming birds".