Lady Palmerston shipwreck discovered south of Kangaroo Island after 90 years

A shipwreck has been discovered south of Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

The Pam had not been seen for 90 years before now.

"It's certainly representative of, you know, our connection to the world back then," senior maritime heritage officer Mark Polzer told 9News.

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Originally named the Lady Palmerston, the ship traded Australian goods all across the world.

"It loaded up a big cargo blue gum in Tasmania and it was transporting that to South Africa," Polzer said.

At one point it served as a home to the James family and was later bought by the Adelaide Steamship Company, when it was re-named simply to Pam.

The 65-metre-long vessel was then converted into a coal transporter.

It finally ended its long career in 1934, gifted to the Australian Navy to be used as target practice.

Diver Steve Saville had been searching for the wreck since 2014, with a rough idea of the location south of Kangaroo Island.

"Steve thought he knew where it was because of the records we have," Polzer said.

"But actually the records were a bit off, so it was a few kilometres away from where it was supposed to be."

It sits 50 metres below the surface, in 12-degree water where visibility is less than two meters.

The Lady Palmerston isn't the only mystery beneath South Australian waters, with many shipwrecks believed to remain undiscovered.

"So we've got just under 800 shipwrecks off our coasts, but of all the vessels, we've only actually located 30 per cent of them," Polzer said.

"We have map locations where we think they are but we haven't actually physically found them."