1 Rupee

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands were a private fiefdom under the Clunies-Ross family, and this 1 Rupee note is a product of that arrangement — scrip issued by a family that functioned as an autonomous authority over the islands and their Malay labor force from the early nineteenth century onward. The estate's currency was not legal tender in any national sense; it existed specifically to keep wages and commerce circulating within the islands rather than bleeding out in coin. Workers were paid in this scrip and could spend it only through estate-controlled stores.

The British government formally recognized Clunies-Ross sovereignty over the islands in 1886, several years after this note was issued — meaning 1879 fell in a period of ambiguous jurisdictional status.