22nd January 2026
The 1955 story of what has been described as the last expansion of the British Empire.
This is the story of how a powerful nation annexed an island in the north Atlantic.
The powerful nation was the United Kingdom, and the year was 1955.
The annexation was ordered by the Queen:
On arrival at […] you will effect a landing and hoist the Union flag on whatever spot appears most suitable or practicable and you will then take possession of the island on our behalf.
A landing was duly effected, and a Union flag duly hoisted by a Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander.
That Lieutenant Commander declared:
In the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, I hereby take possession of this Island of […]
A plaque was placed on the island:
BY AUTHORITY OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH THE SECOND, BY THE GRACE OF GOD OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND AND OF HER OTHER REALMS AND TERRITORIES, QUEEN, HEAD OF THE COMMONWEALTH, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, ETC. ETC. ETC. AND IN ACCORDANCE WITH HER MAJESTY’S INSTRUCTIONS DATED 14. 9. 55. A LANDING WAS EFFECTED ON THIS DAY UPON THE ISLAND OF […] FROM H.M.S. VIDAL.
THE UNION FLAG WAS HOISTED AND POSSESSION OF THE ISLAND WAS TAKEN IN THE NAME OF HER MAJESTY. [Signed] R H Connell, CAPTAIN, H.M.S. VIDAL, 18 SEPTEMBER 1955
The possession taken of this island “in the name of Her Majesty” has been described as the last territorial expansion of the British Empire.
*
So what was this Atlantic island that the Queen ordered to be possessed and which was then taken with all this pomp and circumstance?
The island – more an islet really – was Rockall.
Rockall.
*
One may think that a small uninhabitable granite island – sorry, islet – really was not worth all this elaborate ceremony.
One may think that “THE UNION FLAG WAS HOISTED AND POSSESSION OF THE ISLAND WAS TAKEN IN THE NAME OF HER MAJESTY” and so on was rather absurd.
Some at the time certainly thought so.
Here are the immortal Flanders and Swan:
The fleet set sail for Rockall,
Rockall,
Rockall,
To free the isle of Rockall,
From fear of foreign foe.
We sped across the planet,
To find this lump of granite,
One rather startled Gannet;
In fact, we found Rockall.So, praise the brave Bell-bottoms,
Bottoms,
Bottoms,
Who saw Britannia’s Peril,
And answered to her call,
Though we’re thrown out of Malta,
Though Spain should take Gibraltar,
Why should we flinch or falter,
When England’s got Rockall.
*
The story then gets even more absurd – at least from a constitutional perspective.
For the United Kingdom government then had to decide how to legally treat this acquisition.
And some clever person decided that this islet midway between Iceland and Ireland would be…
…part of Scotland.
Not only would it be treated as part of Scotland, it would be treated as if there was nothing distinctive about it at all.
Just another part of Scotland.
Here is the splendid Island of Rockall Act 1972:
The granite islet, by the legal magic of primary legislation, “shall form part of the District of Harris in the County of Inverness, and the law of Scotland shall apply accordingly.”
Later, by the mundane paragraph 202 of schedule 27 to the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 Rockall was shunted from Harris to form part the Western Isles.
It was as if it were an utterly normal local government boundary reorganisation.
*
The effect of this legal conjuring is that, from a legal perspective, Rockall is supposedly as much of the United Kingdom as any other Scottish island.
When Greenpeace landed there for a protest in 1997, a Foreign Office spokesperson is quoted as saying:
Rockall is British territory. It is part of Scotland and anyone is free to go there and can stay as long as they please.
And a spokesperson for the Western Isles council said:
There is no obvious reason why we would feel obliged to interfere in what is happening. We have no powers to forcibly remove them and they do have rights to be there
Glorious stuff.
*
Behind all this legal and constitutional silliness, however, was some hard policy seriousness.
In 2012 the Foreign Office said:
The UK claims a 12 nautical mile territorial sea around Rockall, which merges with a 200 nautical mile Extended Fishery Zone, 200 nm continental shelf and other zones, draw from baselines on the west coast of the Western Islands, off the mainland coast of Scotland.
And so the United Kingdom insists on licences for Irish fishers and blocks those without a licence:
*
And of course, it is not just fish.
There is the question of oil:
In 2009 the United Kingdom put in a submission to the United Nations for what one news report described as “thousands of square miles of the seabed around the Atlantic outcrop of Rockall”.
This claim is not accepted by Ireland or Iceland.
And against the United Kingdom on this is the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which provides (emphasis added):
Article 121
Regime of islands
1. An island is a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high tide.
2. Except as provided for in paragraph 3, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf of an island are determined in accordance with the provisions of this Convention applicable to other land territory.
3. Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.
As it stands, the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf still has not made a final determination on the United Kingdom’s submission.
Like Rockall itself, the United Kingdom’s formal claim to oil rights seems to be in the middle of nowhere.
*
Another north Atlantic island, and the claim of a powerful nation, has been in the news recently.
Perhaps one way of resolving President Trump’s claim to Greenland would be to give him Rockall instead.
And he can take possession of it in, say, the same way Napoleon took possession of St Helena.
*
Why should we flinch or falter,
When Trump has got Rockall.
***
Comments Policy
This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.
Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.
More on the comments policy is here.
Very interesting. Thank you. Do you have a view as to what the legal position of Rockall would be were Scotland to become independent of the UK?
Just in case anyone has missed the point, Michael Flanders stated on one recording that they were not sure how it had got past the censor (there was one in those days).
Easy to find a recording on YouTube.
I link to the YouTube recording in the post.
The role of the Lord Chamberlain‘s Office was increasingly controversial as the 1960s satire boom got underway. They were often asked about deleted material, but Donald Swan confessed later that their stuff usually came back with appreciative comments. Michael Flanders said that in any case the job of satire was to strip the comfortable veneer from middle class society and his job was to put it back on again
I do hope everyone understands the allusion to St Helena. Making a megalomaniac emperor of a rock is a neat way to resolve everyone’s problems.
I note that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was brought in to existence in 1982, whilst Britain’s claim for Rockall dates back to 1955. Are there any contemporaneous documents with the 1982 Convention that explain how any pre-existing claims that find themselves in “disagreement” with the convention will be handled, or was it the case that acceptance/ratification of the 1982 Convention was deemed to be unconditional acceptance by member nations in which all prior claims are withdrawn?
Further, I note that in recent years, irrespective of whether or not they believe they have sovereignty to do so, China has been occupying what were originally nothing more than mere coral reefs in the South China Sea in the vicinity of e.g. the Spratly Islands and claiming them as Chinese territory – and then promptly slapping military bases on them. Is it still the case that if some new land mass were to come in to existence [for example as the result of tectonic action at the Hawaaian “hot spot” in the middle of the Pacific Plate], can any random nation simply rock up and declare that land to be theirs? Is it simply “first come, first served”, or does proximity to existing territory become a factor? What is the legal threshold above which an object can be deemed to be “claimable” as territory? Does it have to be above water at all times? Of a certain area?
Finally – and I appreciate this takes us largely off-topic – except, perhaps from the legal perspective – rather than thinking about land, what about space? There are two elements to this. Firstly, we are clearly drawing closer to a time when at least one super-power – the US – are readying to return to the Moon, perhaps as a precursor to a trip to Mars.
Google claims that, to establish sovereignty over a new territory, “international law” [see previous posts by DAG for examination of the meaning of this term] requires:-
1. Animus occupandi – a genuine intention to act as sovereign
2. Actual possession – a display of state authority, not merely symbolic acts like planting a flag
3. Continuous/Peaceful display – the exercise of jurisdiction, such as passing laws, setting up an administration and patrolling [providing security].
So does this mean that if the US were to set up a permanently-occupied base, set up laws and an administration, and put something in orbit to patrol, they can claim the Moon as US territory?
Perhaps more significantly, what about Earth Orbit? Yes, this is not “land” as such, but work with me here. Right now, SpaceX have in excess of 9,400 active Starlink satellites. Blue Origin is planning an initial 5,400 satellites to compete with Musk. China plans to have 13,000+ for the Guowang network and another 15,000+ for the Qianfan network. and just to cap that all off, Rwanda have submitted a filing proposing 337,320 satellites for their “Cinnamon-937” project…
Currently, there is no international authorisation or approval process required to put a satellite in orbit or launch something to space – it is a case of “if you have the technical means, you have the right”… but from a legal perspective, this is going to disadvantage all but the super-powers – and it could put humanity at risk of seeing all space closed off to exploration if there were to be a cascading collision that resulted in a debris cloud.
I appreciate that Rockall is of particular interest to Britain and British citizens… but it’s concerning to see how other, as-yet un-tapped resources [such as space] remain in the legal equivalent of the wild, wild west…
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 – to which virtually all spacefaring nations are parties – prohibits national appropriation of the Moon (or any other planet). It also requires state parties to regulate space activities – so even if you have the technical means, you do not have the right. It’s by no means perfect – and there are considerable lacunae – but it is better than nothing.
“Perhaps more significantly, what about Earth Orbit? Yes, this is not “land” as such, but work with me here. Right now, SpaceX have in excess of 9,400 active Starlink satellites. Blue Origin is planning an initial 5,400 satellites to compete with Musk. China plans to have 13,000+ for the Guowang network and another 15,000+ for the Qianfan network. and just to cap that all off, Rwanda have submitted a filing proposing 337,320 satellites for their “Cinnamon-937” project… ”
Painting ourselves into our own corner? When you have lots of stuff whizzing around in orbit (at high velocity) it could become increasingly difficult to avoid such stuff.
The rest of the universe could be going “Phew. Those retards ain’t gonna be bothering us any time soon. Just as well we left them to their own devices.”
Wonderful stuff.
But surely the only thing Trump deserves is Fockall?
That’s the joke Chrissy.
From the Independent report of 12th June, 1997, of the Greenpeace protest that you link to, there is this:
“Under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, waters surrounding islands are the property of the controlling nation, but if the land mass is deemed uninhabitable and economically non-practicable, the land is defined as a rock and no control of nearby waters exists.”
“However Britain is not a signatory to this law. During recent years other countries have questioned the British definition and raised tensions in the area.”
In fact the U.K. signed the convention on 25th July, 1997, just 43 days later, and it entered into force on 24th August.
On the face of it then, the U.K’s claims in respect of rights to exploit economic benefit in the region were self-scuppered by signing the convention. But in fact this is not the case.
The Blair government signed the convention in 1997 because the restrictive rules on deep sea mining in Part XI of the convention in 1982 had been modified, and its policy position was not to assert certain Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claims from Rockall.
The UK’s UN submissions in 2009 in respect of the convention rely on Article 76 and are not, according to its policy position, encumbered by the restriction set out in Article 121 (3). Nautical mile measurements are in fact taken from St Kilda and not Rockall, as Owen Boycott, in the Guardian article you also link to, and written at the time, correctly points out.
“The UK now measures its extended continental shelf claim – which under the UN regulations can stretch up to 350 miles offshore – from the outlying Hebridean island of St Kilda.”
The Foreign Office also said this in 2012 in the same letter you have further linked to:
“Under UNCLOS coastal states are permitted to claim an extended continental shelf beyond 200 nm if it can be demonstrated that the seabed and subsoil fit certain criteria. Claims for extended continental shelves are to be submitted to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. The UK, Ireland and Denmark, on behalf of the Faeroes, have all made submissions to the Commission relating to areas of the Rockall Bank and Hatton Rockall Plateau. Iceland has also made a claim but not yet formally submitted to the Commission.”
Note: St Kilda is approximately 163 nautical miles from Rockall.
As for the motivation to annexe Rockall in 1955, this was, apparently, connected to missile testing. See here:
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15288401.uk-feared-rockall-base-spies/
We really do need upvote buttons.
Oh, please, please can someone invite Stephen Miller’s wife to post on Xitter a map of Rockall with the Stars and Stripes on it?
In 1985 the Royal Navy landed Tom McClean (ex-SAS) on Rockall, who “lived” there for 40 days to substantiate UK sovereignity by showing that Rockall was habitable.
I doubt that Trump would be interested: although Rockall is free of the hated view of ‘windmills’, there is no room for a golf course nor an obvious source of mineral-based personal profit from this real estate for him/his family/his major political donors, as there is for example in Russian or Venezuelan deals.
I fear that you strayed into misconception after correctly pointing to the Ireland/UK fishery issue surrounding the 12 nautical mile (NM) territorial sea drawn from the low-water mark baseline around Rockall. (A broader claim to a 200NM fisheries zone drawn from the same baseline was withdrawn by S.I. 1997/1750 to conform with the Art. 121 you cite with effect from the date the UN Law of the Sea Convention entered into force for the UK. UK 200NM claims have since employed baselines where St Kilda is the most seaward point. And Rockall was never used as a basis to claim oil and gas rights.) The UK partial reference to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf is made pursuant to its effort to determine the outer limits of its shelf (a prolong from its land mass) under the complex Art. 76 formula, the Commission conducting a fact-based exercise to ensure no undue encroachment on the International Seabed Area that lies beyond national jurisdiction and is governed by a ‘common heritage of mankind’ regime. The separate exercise of seeking delimitation of that shelf as between the UK and States with overlapping claims, viz. Ireland, Iceland and Denmark (for the Faeroes), is governed by Art. 83. (The Commission is unlikely to reach a conclusion until those differences are resolved.) Rockall is irrelevant to both.
Thank you for this.
Yes, yes and thrice yes. My post and yours align.
Worth remembering perhaps that were Iceland to be ceded to the US (see Trump’s DAVOS speech), the Americans have never managed to ratify the Law of the Sea treaty.
While one has to acknowledge the appeal of incarcerating Mr Trump on a remote island, why risk of conferring dignity by association with significant historical figures?
Seeing him on a Mars bound rocket dressed in a gold jumpsuit to attempt frontier expansion like a true fact American hero makes more sense. Given the extreme nature of the technical risks and the ego involved, sending Sir Richard to try and talk him into it actually looks like a rational foreign policy move.