[1] By the end of 1827 there were two groups of European settlers on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and there was antagonism between the two settlement leaders, John Clunies-Ross and Alexander Hare.

[1] John Clunies Ross was desirous of establishing a supply depot on the Islands for spices and coffee for shipment to Europe.

He imposed an imperialist social and political regime on the Islands and managed them as a coconut plantation using non-European labour which gave the Clunies Ross family great power.

He established a contractual arrangement between his family and the Malay and later Bantamese people, who would provide labour for the plantations and for copra production.

Rates of pay were fixed at half a Java rupee for 250 husked nuts per day or reasonable services for labour.

The agreement bound the families and community heads to obey rules and lawful commands or quit the Islands and move elsewhere.

[1] Initially, there was an unsuccessful revolt against Clunies Ross by a group of Malay people but a written agreement was in force from 22 December 1837.

A few Javanese seamen joined the community and there was intermarriage between Cocos Malay women and Clunies Ross men.

[1] The coconuts were husked, opened and the inside flesh was dried in the sun or later by artificial heat in purpose-built furnaces.

Home Island contains the remains of the storage sheds and furnaces required for copra production and export.

New buildings and a jetty to load and unload ships were erected with a series of railway tracks to move produce on the Island.

The cable staff managed to send a message reporting the cruiser and HMAS Sydney arrived and a sea battle ensued.

[1] During World War II, the Islands were occupied by the armed forces and there was open scrutiny of the working and living conditions there.

In the years after the War, the government of Singapore expressed that the paternalistic attitude of the Clunies Ross family to the Cocos Malay workforce was unacceptable.

It was upgraded and after 1952 Qantas used the airstrip for refuelling on international flights from Australia to Europe via South Africa.

The people achieved self government and in 1979 a local council (the Shire of Cocos) was established and a cooperative formed to run the islands.

It has a corrugated asbestos cement roof and vent openings at the top of the walls and external piers.

It has metal cladding with wire mesh above, corrugated iron roof, concrete floor and sheeted gables.

[1] This Wikipedia article was originally based on Home Island Industrial Precinct, entry number 105220 in the Australian Heritage Database published by the Commonwealth of Australia 2019 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 15 May 2019.