Name King the | ||
![]() | ||
The Clunies-Ross family were the original settlers of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, a small archipelago in the Indian Ocean. From 1827 to 1978, the family ruled the previously uninhabited islands as a private fiefdom, initially as terra nullius and then later under British (1857–1955) and Australian (1955–1978) sovereignty. The head of the family was usually recognised as the resident magistrate, and was sometimes styled as the "King of the Cocos Islands" – a title initially given by the press but later self-proclaimed.
Contents
- John Clunies Ross
- John George Clunies Ross
- George Clunies Ross
- John Cecil Clunies Ross
- List of Kings
- References
John Clunies-Ross
John Clunies-Ross was a merchant originating from the Shetland Islands. In 1813 he was at Timor as Third Mate on board the whaler Baroness Longueville when he received the opportunity to become captain of the brig Olivia, which opportunity he took.
Reportedly he first cruised the waters of the then uninhabited Cocos (Keeling) Islands in 1825. After surveying them he moved his family to live on one of the islands in 1827. Only Joshua Slocum used different dates, when he wrote that "John Clunis-Ross, who in 1814 touched [the island] in the ship Borneo on a voyage to India", nailed up a Union Jack with plans to settle in the future and "[..] returned 2 years later with his wife and family". He planted "hundreds of coconut palms and brought in Malay workers to harvest the nuts", building a business by selling copra. In the beginning, Javanese convicts were used as laborers and "crime of all kinds was rife", before "getting rid of the criminal class and obtaining a better type of Malay coolie." According to a 1903 article in The Timaru Herald Ross "...[ran] his little colony on model lines and succeeded beyond expectation" and Charles Darwin mentioned after his 1836 visit with the H.M.S Beagle that he "found the natives in a state of freedom". However the article left out the sentence that immediately followed :"but in most other points they are considered as slaves". Ross traded with Dutch vessels going to Dutch ports on Java and Sumatra and became a naturalised Dutch subject; He had approached both the British and the Dutch government for annexation but neither had responded.
John George Clunies-Ross
In 1851, his son John George Clunies-Ross (Ross II) took over, and in 1857 British Captain Stephen Grenville Fremantle visited aboard the HMS Juno who "took possession of the islands in the name of the Britannic Majesty's Government." Freemantle appointed John George as superintendent of the islands and left after a 3-month vacation. The connection to Britain changed nothing in Ross' autonomous administration and it was not until fifteen years later another British ship arrived for a complete survey of the island. Apparently Fremantle annexed the islands by mistake, thinking he had arrived on the Coco Islands of the Andaman Islands.
George Clunies-Ross
In 1871, George Clunies-Ross (Ross III) became superintendent after his father had died. It was during his administration, in 1885, that the first annual inspection by a representative of the Straits Settlements Government occurred. In 1886 Queen Victoria granted the islands in perpetuity to the Clunies-Ross family. Representatives of the Government of the Straits Settlements were sent to the island each year and reports reflected that "members of the Clunies-Ross family are to-day in every sense of the word proprietors of the islands, for Mr. George Clunies-Ross makes his own laws and interprets them, polices his little domain, provides his own coinage [...] controls the entire trade and acts as "the universal provider" to satisfy the wants of the community". According to Chambers' Journal though, there had not been any metallic coinage since 1837.
John Cecil Clunies-Ross
The title to the islands was claimed by the Ross family until 1978, when John Cecil Clunies-Ross (Ross V) sold the islands to the Commonwealth of Australia for £2.5m ($4.75m). The Commonwealth had already been administering the islands since 1955 and threatened expropriation. As of 2007 John Cecil Clunies-Ross lived in Perth, Western Australia.
John George Clunies-Ross
John George Clunies-Ross born 1957 As of 2007 he lived on West Island.
List of Kings
The dates in the table are from the abridged family tree published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in their 2004 series Dynasties.