South Australia’s oldest European shipwreck at risk from the forces that uncovered it

A 3D recreation of the South Australian, which sunk in Encounter Bay in 1837. Photograph: Holger Deuter/University of Applied Sciences, Kaiserslautern.

The wreck of a ship that brought immigrants to Australia, served as a whaling platform and was used as a makeshift prison for the first Aboriginal person to kill a European in South Australia is at risk.

The South Australian, originally named the Marquess of Salisbury, started out carrying mail across the Atlantic before embarking on a more chequered career.