Maritime museum at Port Adelaide an eclectic mix of objects including Australia's oldest and largest

Ketch traders who served South Australian southern ports from the 19th Century to the 1960s became maritime museum highlights.

South Australian Maritime Museum opened in 1986, including Australia’s oldest nautical collection from the Port Adelaide Institute, founded in 1872.

Based in an 1888 office building and two adjoining stone bond stores from the 1850s, in Lipson Street, Port Adelaide, the museum in the state’s first heritage precinct is part of the South Australian government’s history trust.

The museum's collection 20,000-plus objects had an eclectic mix including Captain James Cook’s travelling chest, the plaque that Matthew Flinders left at Memory Cove on Eyre Peninsula in 1802 to mourn the loss of eight sailors, the trophy Hilda Harvey won for the 1930 Swim Through the Port, and the boots of ketch skipper Skug Cutler.

Exhibitions focussed on the exploration of the southern coast and the voyages of Flinders and Nicolas Baudin; and the experiences of immigrants coming to Australia in the 1830s, 1910s and 1950s. The colonial navy of South Australia is also highlighted including the contingent that took HMCS Protector to the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

The museum preserved Australia’s largest (17) collection of ships' figureheads, the earliest from the Ville de Bourdeaux, built in 1836. The museum held strong collections of vintage swimwear; material from the Adelaide Steamship Company including its South Australian gulf trip that offered tours from 1906 to 1955; the grain trade delivering wheat and barley by windjammers rounding Cape Horn in sail until 1949; and the ketch traders who served southern ports from the 19th Century to the 1960s.

The museum offered visitors the opportunity to climb the Port Adelaide lighthouse built in 1869 and originally at the entrance to the Port River. Its extensive maritime archaeology collection was transferred from the South Australian government's heritage unit.