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.
Read more about King Of The Cocos (Keeling) Islands: List Clunies-Ross Family Owners of The Cocos Islands
Famous quotes containing the words king and/or islands:
“King Herod shrieking vengeance at the curled
Up knees of Jesus choking in the air,
A king of speechless clods and infants. Still
The world out-Herods Herod;”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“we are so many
and many within themselves
travel to far islands but no one
asks for their story....”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)