Drafting an archaeological site plan of 'South Australian'

In this short video, Dr James Hunter, the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Curator of RAN Maritime Archaeology, talks about the process of drafting an archaeological site plan, or scale map, of South Australia’s oldest known shipwreck, the barque South Australian. The site plan is one of many museum projects James has been working on while sequestered at home during the COVID-19 crisis, and was created using measurements, notes, sketches, photographs and other data collected from South Australian during archaeological fieldwork projects in 2018 and 2019.

South Australian was integral to initial colonisation efforts in South Australia, as well as the colony’s early economic development. Launched as the Falmouth packet Marquess of Salisbury in 1819, it delivered mail to British colonial possessions in Canada and the Caribbean before being acquired by the Royal Navy in 1824 and renamed Swallow. The vessel was purchased by the South Australian Company in 1836, renamed South Australian, and converted for the purpose of transporting goods and immigrants to the fledgling colonial outpost at Kingscote on Kangaroo Island.

After serving the new colonial enterprise for just over a year, South Australian was wrecked at Encounter Bay (near present-day Victor Harbor) in December 1837. The vessel’s loss was significant not only because it was South Australia’s first documented shipwreck, but also because it directly affected individuals—such as David McLaren, John Hindmarsh, Jr. and John Jeffcott—who played prominent roles in the foundation and development of both the new colony and its capital city, Adelaide.

South Australian’s wreck site was located in April 2018 by a collaborative research consortium that includes the Australian National Maritime Museum, Silentworld Foundation, South Australia’s Department for Environment and Water, South Australian Maritime Museum, Flinders University, and MaP Fund. Investigations of the shipwreck are ongoing.

For additional details about the South Australian project, see the South Australian Immigrant and Labourer Shipwrecks (SAILS) Facebook page.