Dr Ulrich Hübbe

Dr Ulrich Hübbe

In January 1858 the South Australian parliament passed into law the "Real Property Act". The Hamburg-born lawyer Dr Ulrich Hübbe had a key role in the development of this legislation, commonly known as the Torrens Title System, a system for the registration and transfer of land titles when property is bought and sold. It replaced the cumbersome and complicated English Deeds System. The Torrens System was adopted by the other Australian colonies, New Zealand, some US states and other countries.

Hübbe had studied law at the universities of Jena, Berlin and Kiel, and had worked as a lawyer in the Prussian Civil Service. In Hamburg he had also helped Lutherans to emigrate to South Australia (eg Pastor Fritzsche's group) and to the USA. Having arrived in Adelaide on the 15th October 1842 on the Taglione, he worked as a farmer (unsuccessfully), teacher and journalist. The parliamentarian Robert Torrens, wishing to reform the laws for transfer of property, heard of Hübbe's detailed knowledge of the simpler system that had been in use for centuries in Hamburg and the other Hansa cities of the north German coast. Torrens had Hübbe's advice at every step of the way during the development of the legislation and Hübbe wrote a detailed description of a variety of property transfer systems around the world for South Australian parliamentarians to persuade them of the benefits of the proposed new system. One parliamentarian, Mr Forster, wrote to his niece:

"... it never could have been brought to a final consummation but for the efficient help of a German lawyer, Dr Hübbe ... The provisions of the Bill were settled by Mr Torrens and a few friends and put into proper form by Dr Hübbe ..."

Robert Torrens said in parliament:

"No one in this House will assert that this which is accomplished by Germans in Hamburg cannot be accomplished by German and English colonists in South Australia."

Later, when Hübbe's eyesight was failing and he was in financial difficulty, friends petitioned the SA parliament, who granted him a special pension in 1884 in recognition of his work on the Real Property Act.

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