King of The Cocos (Keeling) Islands

King Of The Cocos (Keeling) Islands

King of the Cocos Islands was a title given by the press to John Clunies-Ross, a Scottish sea captain, and other members of his family.

He went to live on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in 1827. Queen Victoria granted the islands in perpetuity to the Clunies-Ross family in 1886. Thus, the title to the islands was claimed by his descendants until 1978 when John Cecil Clunies-Ross sold under threat of expropriation the islands to the Commonwealth of Australia for £2.5m ($4.75m). The Commonwealth had already been administering the islands since 1955.

Clunies-Ross currently lives in Perth, Western Australia, but his son John George Clunies-Ross (born 1957) lives on West Island.