South Australian

The wreck of the South Australian lies about three miles north-east of Lundy, which is outside of the Marine Protected Area. Mention of the wreck is included here as, not only is the wreck a Scheduled Monument reflecting its historical importance, it was also discovered by members of the local Ilfracombe Sub-Aqua Club. From its discovery in 1986, it took a further 19 years of research (until 2005) for a definitive name to be determined for the wreck.

A short history of the South Australian

The South Australian was a clipper ship that voyaged annually between London and South Australia for about 20 years. She was built in North Sands, Sunderland, in 1868 by William Pile for Devitt & Moore's ‘Adelaide Line’ of packet ships and was a successor to the famous City of Adelaide ship (built in 1864).

The South Australian was a notable carrier of dead weight (an amount of heavy cargo), and amongst the numerous ‘specialties in her freightage’ for Australia, the ship is known to have delivered the Victoria Bridge, which spanned the River Torrens, the most significant river of the Adelaide Plains.

In 1887, the South Australian was bought by William Woodside of Belfast. He used her to carry cargo to India and to New Brunswick on the east coast of Canada. In February 1889, she was loaded with railway track and rail fishplates (metal plates used to connect the ends of two rails) in Cardiff and set off on a new passage to Rosario in Argentina.

When off Lundy, she ran into a gale and the Captain decided to run before the wind. As the ship rolled in the great seas, her cargo began to shift in her hold as a solid mass. In the early hours of 14 February, the rails broke through the hull and the ship started filling with water. The crew managed to launch a lifeboat in difficult conditions and all but one of the crew survived. They drifted for 12 hours before being picked up by the schooner Spray and then being transferred to the steam trawler Flying Scotchman which landed them at Swansea.