The council's first five members were Dr David Wark, James Cobbledick, Charles Bonney, Daniel Ferguson and George Müller, as appointed by the Governor alongside the proclamation under the District Councils Act 1852 pending subsequent elections.[4][6] It was subsequently divided up into five wards: St Bernards, Uraidla, Norwood, Glenunga and Stepney. The councillors met for the first time at the World's End Hotel in Magill on 12 June 1853.
In 1855 the population of the council area was 3,705, higher by a thousand than the adjacent Town of Kensington and Norwood.[8]
The huge area of East Torrens was not to prove as stable as Kensington and Norwood. Ratepayers were frustrated as to where their money was going; councillors did not have the administration or funds to operate effectively and the interests of the area were hugely varied.[9] On 14 August 1856, the district councils of Payneham and Burnside were separated, respectively, from the north west and south west, city-side parts of East Torrens.[10] East Torrens council was further divided in 1858 with the secession of the District Council of Crafers.[11] The original East Torrens council had broken up into eight separate councils or partial councils (including the remainder East Torrens itself) by 1930.[2] Apart from St Peters, Payneham, Campbelltown, Burnside and Crafers, parts of the rural district councils of Onkaparinga and Talunga had annexed parts of East Torrens.[12] The main population centre at the heart of the remaining area was Norton Summit which was host to council meetings from 1897 and had become the official seat of the council by 1903.[12]
The following adjacent local government bodies co-existed with the East Torrens council prior to the secession of the district councils of Payneham and Burnside in 1856:
From 1856 the shape of the East Torrens council changed dramatically with the establishment of Payneham and Burnside councils adjacent to the River Torrens. From 1856 the following adjacent local government bodies co-existed to East Torrens council:
District Council of Payneham lay north west. From 1868 it was known instead as the District Council Campbelltown, later City of Campbelltown.
District Council of Burnside, later called City of Burnside, and the District Council of Payneham, later called City of Campbelltown, lay immediately west.
^"Proclamations". South Australian Government Gazette. 1853 (22 ed.): 356–357. 2 June 1853. Bounded on the south by the Great Eastern Road, commencing at the point of intersection of the north side of said road with the south boundary of the Park Lands, and continuing by the said road to the southern corner of Section 1136; thence northerly alongthesouthern boundaries of 1136 and 48 to the east angle of Section 48, thence by as direct a line as practicable to the south-east angle of Section 34. thence by the east boundaries of 34 and 35, to the northern angle of the latter Section; thence by as straight a line as practicable to the Stringy-bark Trigonometrical Station, thence by Hundred boundary between Talunga and Onkaparinga to the point of intersection with the River Torrens; thence westerly by the centre of the River Torrens to its intersection with the eastern boundary of the Park Lands; thence southerly, by the eastern boundary of the Park Lands, to their south-east angle; thence westerly, by the south boundary of the Park Lands, to the point of commencement, alwavs excepting Preliminary Sections 260, 261, 277, 276, and the roads on their east and west sides, and preliminary Sections 289 and 290, which are not included in the District of East Torrens.
^Findlay, Marjorie (1969). "Joseph Crompton - Australian Dictionary of Biography". Biography. Retrieved 4 June 2020. This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 3, (MUP), 1969
^Warburton, JW (1983). Payneham: garden village to city. Adelaide: City of Payneham. pp. 3–4. [East Torrens DC] outlined a district twelve miles square and stretching from the [Adelaide] city parklands far into the hills [...] It was far too big for management from horse and cart, and the needs of the inhabitants were too disparate – timber workers and market gardeners scattered sparsely in the hills, village settlements at Payneham, Magill and Glen Osmond, and nearer the city, the embryonic suburbs of Stepney, Kent Town and parts of Hackney
^Melbourne in Coleman, D., ed. (1956). The First Hundred Years – A History of Burnside in SA. p. 11.
^Warburton, E (1981). The Paddocks Beneath – A History of Burnside from the Beginning. p. xxiii–xxiv.
^ abHosking, P. (1936). The Official civic record of South Australia : centenary year, 1936. Adelaide: Universal Publicity Company. p. 552. The original boundaries of the District included the present Corporation of St. Peters, the District Councils of Payneham, Campbelltown, and Burnside, portion of Crafers, Onkaparinga, and Talunga.
