Dr Ulrich Hübbe LLD and the true origins of the Real Property Act

Dr Ulrich Hübbe LLD (1805–1892) and the true origins of the Real Property Act

RITA BOGNA, SENIOR ASSISTANT PARLIAMENTARY COUNSEL

It was perfectly well known at the time that Sir R. R. Torrens brought in the Real Property Act, that Dr. Hübbe provided the ideas, the brains, and the work of the measure. – —The Hon. Rudolph Henning M.P. (1880)1

During a visit to the Hahndorf Cemetery I came across a grave site that got my attention because of a memorial to the son and grandson of the deceased, both soldiers killed in action and buried overseas. Captain Samuel Grau Hübbe was killed in South Africa in 1900 during the Second Boer War at the age of 52, and his son, Captain Hermann Fritz Hübbe, was killed in 1916 in Pozieres, France, during the First World War at the age of 21. When I researched Samuel’s father, Ulrich Hübbe, I found that he had studied law in Jena and Berlin and had been awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1837 by the University of Kiel. After spending some time in a junior position in the Prussian Civil Service, Hübbe practised as a barrister in Hamburg, helping Old Lutheran congregations persecuted by the Prussian Government to obtain refuge in South Australia.

In 1842 Hübbe went to England and, with help from George Fife Angas, migrated to South Australia. Not being able to practice law here due to his foreign qualifications, Hübbe worked variously as a journalist, teacher, government interpreter and translator and land agent, but he was a passionate advocate of law reform, particularly in the areas of succession and property law. In 1857 Angas paid for the publication of Hübbe’s pamphlet, The Voice of History and Reason Brought to Bear Against the Absurd and Expensive Method of Encumbering Immoveable Property. The Evening Journal wrote that “Dr. Hübbe explained to Sir R.R. Torrens the form of certificates of title and encumbrances in force in the Hanseatic towns of his native land, and Sir Robert was pleased with the simple way in which the charges were detailed that, with Dr. Hübbe’s assistance, he transferred the idea as far as was practicable into the Bill”.2

From this source in particular was embodied the principle that mortgages should not change the freehold property, but that they should simply be charges on the property in priority one over the other. Dr Hübbe, at his own suggestion, drew the very comprehensive repeal clause printed in the Act, and also spent a considerable time in remodelling the whole draft of the Bill. He submitted his alterations to Sir R.R. Torrens, and the draft Bill thus revised was placed before Parliament and was made law. It is to be regretted that these important services were never properly recognised by the State.3

Hübbe was also interested in reform of the law relating to inheritance in cases of intestacy, ardently supporting the abolition of the law of primogeniture. He drafted a Bill for uniform law on succession on intestacy and gave evidence to the Commission on the Real Property, Intestacy and Testamentary Causes Acts in 1873. He also proposed a consolidation of statutes passed or applying in South Australia, with tables of amendments and repeals, and suggested an index of the colony’s laws. Unfortunately, none of these projects interested the Government.

By 1884 Hübbe was practically destitute. A deputation consisting of several Members of Parliament met the Premier and Chief Secretary, the Hon. (later Sir) John Colton M.P., and asked for the Government to make some provision to Hübbe’s poverty and remunerate him for his contributions to the Real Property Act.

The Chief Secretary was also asked to present a petition to Parliament, and it was pointed out by the gentlemen who spoke that when Sir Richard Torrens was engaged in framing the Real Property Act the whole of the legal profession, without exception, were hostile to the measure.

Ulrich Hübbe circa 1880. Photo State Library of South Australia Collections

Consequently, Sir Richard was unable to secure the assistance of any of the lawyers in drafting a Bill to lay before Parliament, but Dr. Hübbe, being a lawyer himself, and being acquainted with the principle, came forward and rendered him most valuable aid in securing the passing of the measure. The correspondence the Doctor had been compelled to deal with in connection with the case had been very burdensome, and if it had not been for the energy and the tact he displayed in educating the people up to the Act the benefits derived from it would have been deferred for many years to come.

Dr. Hübbe, who had not yet made any claim upon the Government, was therefore entitled to some recognition of his services. At the present time he was eighty years of age, blind and in destitute circumstances; and numerous friends of his had thought it proper to take steps to draw the attention of the Government to his circumstances, and if necessary, petition Parliament to support him during the declining years of his life. This was not asked in the light of charity, as man who had rendered such valuable service to the State should not be treated as a pauper, but have accorded to him some recognition of the service he had rendered to the public of South Australia.4

According to Anthony Forster, a Member of the Legislative Council who was prominent in guiding the Bill for the Real Property Act through the Council, the Act might never have come to fruition without Hübbe’s help. Hübbe was later given £250 by the Government, but his contribution to the authorship of the Torrens system of land title registration has never been properly recognised or acknowledged.

In 1932, a verbatim statement made by Hübbe to his grandson Sam Hood in 1884 was published for the first time by The Advertiser. Hübbe revealed that after finding Torren’s idea of adopting the British legislation that provided for the transfer of title to ships unworkable, he “translated the German system as used in the Hanseatic cities of which Hamburg was one. Mr Torrens adopted this system and I drafted the Bill finally on those lines which Mr. Torrens piloted through the House of Assembly”.5

The legal profession was up in arms against the plans and Mr. Charles Fenn, a barrister and partner of one of the leading conveyancing firms then in Adelaide, was especially loud and emphatic in a series of letters in the press, warning proprietors and lenders and everyone dealing in real property of the extreme unsafety of trusting their interests to a public office, and assuring them that no system of public booking of dealings in land had ever worked anywhere.6

Hübbe was reputedly fluent in 11 languages. He was blind for many years before his death but was able to read using William Moon’s raised type, a system of writing for the blind using embossed symbols derived mostly from Latin script, with raised curves, angles and lines. Moon’s system is said to be easier to understand than Braille, but is mostly used by adults who have lost their eyesight and were previously familiar with the shapes of letters. Hübbe imported Moon’s raisedtype versions of the four Gospels and the Book of Psalms in German for the use of his fellow German colonists who were blind.

Hübbe died at Mount Barker on 8 February ,1892 at the age of 86. B

Endnotes 1 South Australia, Parliamentary Debates, House of

Assembly, 20 July 1880, 427. 2 ‘Obituary. Death of Dr. Ulrich Hubbe.’ Evening

Journal, 10 February 1892, 3. 3 Ibid. 4 ‘Deputations. Dr. Ulrich Hubbe and the Real

Property Act.’ South Australian Register, 29 August 1884, 6. 5 ‘Torrens and Dr. Hubbe. Authorship Of Real

Property Act. Claim Produced’, The Advertiser, 19

March 1932, 8. 6 Ibid.