Alexander Rankin Dunlop

Alexander Rankin Dunlop (23 September 1868 in Pictou, Nova Scotia, British North America; – 8 August 1946 in Worthing, England) was the first British Resident in Tawau of North Borneo.

Personal life Dunlop was born on 23 September 1868 as the third of four children of a Scottish family. His father, Henry Dunlop, emigrated from Glasgow to Canada with his wife Sarah Mackay in 1864. The Dunlop family lived in New York in 1880, where his father had found work as a cotton spinner. The family then moved to California to try their luck as a farmer.

Career in North Borneo Chartered Company Tawau residents and their community chief with Dunlop (sitting right) in the Cowie Harbour of Tawau, circa 1885. In 1885, Dunlop moved to North Borneo to work under the North Borneo Chartered Company as an administrative officer. He entered the service of the company and becomes acquainted. In October 1886, he accompanied Governor William Hood Treacher on an inspection tour in the West Coast Residency and to Silam in Lahad Datu. In 1888, he left the company for unknown reasons, but returned to the position of a second-level administrative officer in 1890 for the settlement areas of Labuk and Sugut, He arrived at Sandakan on 24 August 1891 as assistant resident-in-charge of Penungah and the interior. Since this coincides with the end of service of William Burgess Pryer, the resident of the East Coast, the occasion was probably the passing of Pryer.

Most of the time between 1892 and 1903, Dunlop had held various government offices in or near Tawau. This however, had little to do with pure administrative activity; for example, he participated in various punitive expeditions against the insurgents under Mat Salleh in 1896 and 1898 and against Kamunta in 1901. with whom he has a daughter named Hazel. His wife health condition was suddenly deteriorating in 1914 that forcing him to quit his service at the North Borneo Chartered Company and depart to Europe from Sandakan on 28 March.

Legacy Plate in the old shoplots building in Tawau marking the Dunlop Street. Dunlop Street, one of the two main streets in Tawau is named after him.