Lots of collectible stamps to choose from: Great Britian, European, US, and the World! Discover best deals on many one of a kind rare stamps to collect atbargain prices available on eBay.

Cocos/ Keeling Is

The Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, also called Cocos Islands and Keeling Islands, is a territory of Australia. There are two atolls and twenty-seven coral islands in the group. more...

Home

Africa

Asia

Commonwealth/ British...

Aden

Australian Antarctic...

Christmas Island

Cocos/ Keeling Is

National

Other Australian Stamps

States

Bahamas

Bahrain

Barbados

Basutoland/ Lesotho

Bechuanaland/ Botswana

Bermuda

British Antarctic Territory

British Guiana/ Guyana

British Honduras/ Belize

British Indian Ocean...

British Levant

British Virgin Islands

Brunei

Burma

Canada

Cayman Islands

Ceylon

Collections/ Mixture

Cook Is/ Aitutaki/ Penrhyn

Cyprus

Dominica

Falkland Is & Dependencies

Fiji

Gambia

Gibraltar

Gilbert & Ellice Is/...

Gold Coast/ Ghana

Grenada

Heligoland

Hong Kong

India

Jamaica

Kenya/ Uganda/ Tanganyika

Kuwait

Leeward Islands

Malaya/ Malaysia/ S. Setts.

Malta

Nauru

New Hebrides/ Vanuatu

New Zealand

Nigeria

Niue

Norfolk Island

North Borneo

Northern Rhodesia/ Zambia

Nyasaland/ BCA/ Malawi

Omnibus Issues

Other Commonwealth Stamps

Samoa

Sarawak

Somaliland Protectorate

South Africa

South West Africa/ Namibia

St Helena

St Kitts & Nevis

St Lucia

St Vincent/ Grenadines

Sudan

Tonga

Tuvalu

Ireland

Philately/ Postal History

Rest of the World

Thematics

United States

The islands are located in the Indian Ocean, about one-half of the way from Australia to Sri Lanka, at 12°07′S 96°54′E.

History

Captain William Keeling was the first European to see the islands, in 1609, but they remained uninhabited until the nineteenth century, when they became a possession of the Clunies-Ross family. Slaves were brought to work the coconut plantation from Indonesia, the Cape of Good Hope and East Asia by Alexander Hare who had taken part in Stamford Raffles' takeover of Java in 1811. A merchant seaman called Captain John Clunies-Ross, who had also served under Raffles in the takeover, set up a compound and Hare's severely mistreated slaves soon escaped to work under better conditions in the Clunies-Ross compound.

On 1 April 1836, HMS Beagle under Captain Robert FitzRoy arrived to take soundings establishing the profile of the atoll. To the young naturalist Charles Darwin who was on the ship the results supported a theory he had developed of how atolls formed. He studied the natural history of the islands and collected specimens. His assistant Syms Covington noted that \"an Englishman 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.\"

The islands were brought under the British Empire in 1857. In 1867, their administration was placed under the Straits Settlements, which later became known as Singapore. Queen Victoria granted the islands in perpetuity to the Clunies-Ross family in 1886. The Cocos Islands under the Clunies-Ross family have been cited as an example of a 19th century micronation.

On 9 November 1914, the islands became the site of the Battle of Cocos, one of the first naval battles of World War I. The telegraph station on Direction Island, a vital link between the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, was attacked by the German light cruiser SMS Emden, which was destroyed several hours later by the Australian cruiser, HMAS Sydney .

During World War II the cable station was once again a vital link. The islands were also noted as a covert base for enemy German raider cruisers, which operated in the Indian Ocean. Following the entry of Japan 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 and receivers were also not used, except in emergencies.

After the Fall of Singapore in 1942, the islands were administered from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), while 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 6-inch 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.