Discovery and early history The archipelago was discovered in 1609 by Captain
William Keeling of the
East India Company, on a return voyage from the East Indies.
North Keeling was sketched by
Carl Gustaf Ekeberg, a Swedish captain, in 1749, showing the presence of
coconut palms. It also appears on a 1789 chart produced by British hydrographer
Alexander Dalrymple. In 1825, Scottish merchant seaman Captain
John Clunies-Ross stopped briefly at the islands on a trip to India, nailing up a
Union Jack and planning to return and settle on the islands with his family in the future. Wealthy Englishman
Alexander Hare had similar plans, and hired a captain coincidentally, Clunies-Ross's brotherto bring him and a volunteer
harem of 40
Malay women to the islands, where he hoped to establish his private residence. Hare had previously served as resident of
Banjarmasin, a town in
Borneo, and found that "he could not confine himself to the tame life that civilisation affords". Disheartened, Hare left the island. He died in
Bencoolen in 1834. Encouraged by members of the former harem, Clunies-Ross then recruited Malays to come to the island for work and wives. Clunies-Ross's workers were paid in a currency called the Cocos rupee, a currency John Clunies-Ross minted himself that could only be redeemed at the company store. On 1 April 1836, under Captain
Robert FitzRoy arrived to take soundings to establish the profile of the atoll as part of the
survey expedition of the Beagle. To the naturalist
Charles Darwin, aboard the ship, the results supported a theory he had developed of how atolls formed, which he later published as
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. He studied the natural history of the islands and collected specimens. Darwin's assistant
Syms Covington noted that "an Englishman [he was in fact Scottish] and HIS family, with about sixty or seventy
mulattos from the
Cape of Good Hope, live on one of the islands. Captain Ross, the governor, is now absent at the Cape."
Annexation by the British Empire The islands were annexed by the British Empire in 1857. This annexation was carried out by Captain
Stephen Grenville Fremantle in command of . Fremantle claimed the islands for the British Empire and appointed
Ross II as Superintendent. In 1878, by
Letters Patent, the Governor of
Ceylon was made Governor of the islands, and, by further Letters Patent in 1886, responsibility for the islands was transferred to the Governor of the
Straits Settlement to exercise his functions as "Governor of Cocos Islands". Meanwhile, in 1886
Queen Victoria had, by indenture, granted the islands in perpetuity to John Clunies-Ross. The head of the family enjoyed semi-official status as
Resident Magistrate and Government representative.
World War I cruiser
Emden leaves the Cocos (Keeling) Islands via this jetty on
Direction Island on 9 November 1914. On the morning of 9 November 1914, the islands became the site of the
Battle of Cocos, one of the first naval battles of
World War I. A landing party from the German cruiser captured and disabled the wireless and cable communications station on
Direction Island, but not before the station was able to transmit a distress call. An Allied troop convoy was passing nearby, and the Australian cruiser was detached from the convoy escort to investigate.
Sydney spotted the island and
Emden at 09:15, with both ships preparing for combat. At 11:20, the heavily damaged
Emden beached herself on
North Keeling Island. The Australian warship broke to pursue
Emdens supporting
collier, which scuttled herself, then returned to North Keeling Island at 16:00. At this point,
Emdens
battle ensign was still flying: usually a sign that a ship intends to continue fighting. After no response to instructions to lower the ensign, two salvoes were shot into the beached cruiser, after which the Germans lowered the flag and raised a
white sheet.
Sydney had orders to ascertain the status of the transmission station, but returned the next day to provide medical assistance to the Germans. Casualties totaled 134 personnel aboard
Emden killed, and 69 wounded, compared to four killed and 16 wounded aboard
Sydney. The German survivors were taken aboard the Australian cruiser, which caught up to the troop convoy in
Colombo on 15 November, then transported to
Malta and handed over the prisoners to the
British Army. An additional 50 German personnel from the shore party, unable to be recovered before
Sydney arrived, commandeered a schooner and escaped from Direction Island, eventually arriving in
Constantinople.
Emden was the last active
Central Powers warship in the Indian or Pacific Ocean, which meant troopships from Australia and New Zealand could sail without naval escort, and Allied ships could be deployed elsewhere.
World War II During
World War II, the cable station was once again a vital link. The Cocos were valuable for direction finding by the
Y service, the worldwide intelligence system used during the war. Allied planners noted that the islands might be seized as an airfield for
German planes and as a base for commerce raiders operating in the Indian Ocean. Following
Japan's entry into the war, Japanese forces occupied neighbouring islands. To avoid drawing their attention to the Cocos cable station and its islands' garrison, the
seaplane anchorage between Direction and
Horsburgh islands was not used. Radio transmitters were also kept silent, except in emergencies. After the
Fall of Singapore in 1942, the islands were administered from Ceylon and West and Direction Islands were placed under
Allied military administration. The islands' garrison initially consisted of a platoon from the British Army's
King's African Rifles, located on Horsburgh Island, with two guns to cover the anchorage. The local inhabitants all lived on Home Island. Despite the importance of the islands as a communication centre, the Japanese made no attempt either to raid or to occupy them and contented themselves with sending over a reconnaissance aircraft about once a month. On the night of 8–9 May 1942, 15 members of the garrison, from the
Ceylon Defence Force,
mutinied under the leadership of
Gratien Fernando. The mutineers were said to have been provoked by the attitude of their British officers and were also supposedly inspired by Japanese anti-British propaganda. They attempted to take control of the
gun battery on the islands. The
Cocos Islands Mutiny was crushed, but the mutineers murdered one non-mutinous soldier and wounded one officer. Seven of the mutineers were sentenced to death at a trial that was later alleged to have been improperly conducted, though the guilt of the accused was admitted. Four of the sentences were commuted, but three men were executed, including Fernando. These were to be the only
British Commonwealth soldiers executed for mutiny during the Second World War. On 25 December 1942, the Japanese submarine
I-166 bombarded the islands but caused no damage. Later in the war, two airstrips were built, and three bomber squadrons were moved to the islands to conduct raids against Japanese targets in South East Asia and to provide support during the
planned reinvasion of
Malaya and reconquest of Singapore. The first aircraft to arrive were
Supermarine Spitfire Mk VIIIs of
No. 136 Squadron RAF. They included some
Liberator bombers from
No. 321 (Netherlands) Squadron RAF (members of exiled Dutch forces serving with the
Royal Air Force), which were also stationed on the islands. When in July 1945
No. 99 and
No. 356 RAF squadrons arrived on West Island, they brought with them a daily newspaper called
Atoll which contained news of what was happening in the outside world. Run by airmen in their off-duty hours, it achieved fame when dropped by Liberator bombers on POW camps over the heads of the Japanese guards. In 1946, the administration of the islands reverted to
Singapore and it became part of the Colony of Singapore.
Transfer to Australia On 23 November 1955, the islands were transferred from the United Kingdom to the
Commonwealth of Australia. Immediately before the transfer the islands were part of the United Kingdom's Colony of Singapore, in accordance with the Straits Settlements (Repeal) Act, 1946 of the United Kingdom and the British Settlements Acts, 1887 and 1945, as applied by the Act of 1946. • The Commonwealth Parliament and the Government requested and consented to the enactment of a United Kingdom Act for the purpose. • The Cocos Islands Act, 1955, authorised Her Majesty, by Order in Council, to direct that the islands should cease to form part of the
Colony of Singapore and be placed under the authority of the Commonwealth. • By the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Act, 1955, the Parliament of the Commonwealth provided for the acceptance of the islands as a territory under the authority of the Commonwealth and for its government. • The Cocos Islands Order in Council, 1955, made under the United Kingdom Act of 1955, provided that upon the appointed day (23 November 1955) the islands should cease to form part of the Colony of Singapore and be placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia. The reason for this comparatively complex machinery was due to the terms of the Straits Settlement (Repeal) Act, 1946. According to Sir
Kenneth Roberts-Wray "any other procedure would have been of doubtful validity". The separation involved three steps: separation from the Colony of Singapore; transfer by United Kingdom and acceptance by Australia. H. J. Hull was appointed the first official representative (now administrator) of the new territory. He had been a lieutenant-commander in the Royal Australian Navy and was released for the purpose. Under Commonwealth Cabinet Decision 1573 of 9 September 1958, Hull's appointment was terminated and
John William Stokes was appointed on secondment from the Northern Territory police. A media release at the end of October 1958 by the Minister for Territories, Hasluck, commended Hull's three years of service on Cocos. Stokes served in the position from 31 October 1958 to 30 September 1960. His son's boyhood memories and photos of the Islands have been published. C. I. Buffett
MBE from
Norfolk Island succeeded him and served from 28 July 1960 to 30 June 1966, and later acted as Administrator back on Cocos and on Norfolk Island. In 1974, Ken Mullen wrote a small book about his time with wife and son from 1964 to 1966 working at the Cable Station on Direction Island. In the 1970s, the Australian government's dissatisfaction with the Clunies-Ross feudal style of rule of the island increased. In 1978, Australia forced the family to sell the islands for the sum of , using the threat of compulsory acquisition. By agreement, the family retained ownership of Oceania House, their home on the island. In 1983, the Australian government reneged on this agreement and told
John Clunies-Ross that he should leave the Cocos. The following year the
High Court of Australia ruled that resumption of Oceania House was unlawful, but the Australian government ordered that no government business was to be granted to Clunies-Ross's shipping company, an action that contributed to his bankruptcy. John Clunies-Ross later moved to
Perth, Western Australia. However, some members of the Clunies-Ross family still live on the Cocos. Extensive preparations were undertaken by the government of Australia to prepare the Cocos Malays to vote in their referendum of self-determination. Discussions began in 1982, with an aim of holding the referendum, under United Nations supervision, in mid-1983. Under guidelines developed by the UN Decolonization Committee, residents were to be offered three choices: full independence, free association, or integration with Australia. The last option was preferred by both the islanders and the Australian government. A change in government in Canberra following the March 1983 Australian elections delayed the vote by one year. While the Home Island Council stated a preference for a traditional communal consensus "vote", the UN insisted on a secret ballot.
The referendum was held on 6 April 1984, with all 261 eligible islanders participating, including the Clunies-Ross family: 229 voted for integration, 21 for Free Association, nine for independence, and two failed to indicate a preference. In the first decade of the 21st century, a series of disputes have occurred between the Muslim and the non-Muslim population of the islands. West Island has an airstrip that is more than long and is designed to accommodate
Boeing 737 passenger flights and smaller military planes. In 2023, the Australian parliament approved plans to extend the airstrip by 150 metres so that it could take
Boeing P-8 Poseidon aircraft capable of low-level
anti-submarine warfare operations and high-tech military surveillance. Construction was scheduled to start in 2024 and be completed by 2026.
Indigenous status Descendants of the Cocos Malays brought to the islands from the
Malay Peninsula, the
Indonesian archipelago,
Southern Africa and
New Guinea by Hare and by Clunies-Ross as
indentured workers,
slaves or
convicts are seeking recognition from the
Australian government to be acknowledged as
Indigenous Australians despite neither being indigenous to the island, nor ethnically
Aboriginal. == Government ==