Search for King of Cocos

Islands ?

And Story of an Englishman with 165 Wives

(By London Correspondent of Sydney “Daily Mirror”)

SOMEWHERE in the United Kingdom there is a missing monarch—a lad in his teens, accompanied by his mother—and in the middle of the Indian Ocean, roughly half-way between Aus tralia and India, there is a tiny kingdom with a vacant throne. The king is monarch of the Cocos Islands, and his name is Clunies-Ross, His father, John Sydney Clunies-Ross—Ross IV—died of shock following an enemy raid on the Cocos Islands last July.

The Cocos group comprises 24 islands, the largest about two and a half miles, the smallest hardly providing room in which to swing a cat. If Ross V is found the unofficial dynasty will continue un broken, but if not then the Cocos Islands will become a possession of Great Britain.

The history of the Clunies-Ross dynasty goes back more than 150 years to the time when a tall, dour Scotsman, John Clunies- Ross, after taking up arms on behalf of James, the Pretender of Scotland, was forced to flee to the Shetland Islands.

During a visit to London he narrowly escaped the press gang with the aid of Elizabeth Dymock, who sheltered him and whom he later married.

Then began many years of adventure and travel at sea. Finally, Clunies-Ross ended up in Java, where he met a fellow adventurer named Alexander Haie.

In 1825 Ross and Hare decided to make their home on the Cocos Isles. They both had ships, but Ross arrived first.

The reason for Hare’s delay was appa rent. When he duly turned up he had brought with him 165 women —Malays, Chinese, and half-castes —with whom he proposed to establish a tropical love nest.

Some of these women he had enticed, some had been given to him as slaves, and to about 25 his intentions were honor able —he was engaged to marry them all.

Ross, a pious man, deeply in love with his wife, was shocked when he discovered that Hare’s vision of Empire building hardly accorded with his own, and the two men established themselves on sepa rate islands —Hare surrounded by a harem and musicians in a comic-opera court, and Ross nearby with his wife, family, and an adventurous, hardworking crew of men.

But love will find a way. Within a few years Ross’s men had raided Hare’s island so many times and carried off so many of his women that Hare was forced to pack up and return to Singapore.

Ross remained conqueror and king.

Through hard work he built up a substan tial fortune processing copra for oil and allied products. He dfed in 1854, after reigning as virtual king for a quarter of a century. He was succeeded by his son, John George—Ross 11, who married a Malayan princess, Spia Dupong.

Population Grows

MEANWHILE the Cocos population was growing rapidly, although the islands had been uninhabited before Hare arrived with his of dusky belles.

The tiny kingdom was acquiring riches and strange history. Charles Darwin called in with the famous ship “Beagle,” and once a party of shipwrecked cut throats went off with the islands’ schooner, which was never heard of again.

Each of the kingdom’s two founders appealed for the islands’ annexation— Ross to Britain and Hare to Holland. Both countries sent ships to investgate, but nothing was done until 1857, when the Cocos group was proclaimed part of the British Empire during the reign of Ross II In 1886 Queen Victoria was so impressed with the able manner in which the Ross dynasty had carried on the administration of the islands that she granted thp family possession of the kingdom of Cocos Islands forever.

The Rosses built a palace on their home island—one of the group’s two inhabits able islands. Special permission is required before anyone—natives or Europeans—is allowed to visit this island. Any natives who leave the kingdom of Cocos may never return. A small amount of liquor is allowed in the group, but intoxication is severely dealt with. . Ross 111 died on the Isle of Wight in 1910, and his successor, John Sydney Clunies-Ross, reigned until last year as Ross IV.

An elderly man without issue, the story goes that eaily in the 1930’s he went to London to find a bride and a successor to the throne. It is said he encountered his future queen in a little

London teashop. He was then aged about 60 and was dark-skinned like a Malayan, for Malayan blood ran in his veins, m 0 T racc Found 1 , . . . riIHE marriage was duly solemnised, A according to the story, and Ross IV returned to his kngdom, leaving his wife—the first white queen of Cocos since Ross I landed there-»in London with a son and heir.

The mystery now is; Where is the lad who is to carry on the line?

The Colonial Ofiice is mysterious, and says it does not know. Malayan head quarters in London know the family, of course, but do not know the whereabouts of the heir.

A diligent search I carried on for two days at Somerset House, where births and deaths are recorded, failed to reveal the secret.

The unofficial kingdom of the Cocos Islands is distinguished for a number of reasons. It is the world’s smallest king dom for a start, and, in the second place, all other thrones have scores or pre tenders, heirs, claimants and intriguers, clamouring for possession, whereas the Cocos throne is the only one in the world for which the rightful claimant cannot be found.