still many others committed suicide or were murdered by criminals in secret societies, when they could not repay their "slave debt" and the high interest piled on them when the colonial banking industry headed south. At one point, almost all the women in Singapore died out, and prostitutes had to be imported from Macau, then a Dutch province, to supply more sex slaves to the colony so the British port could continue to collect high rents and sell land to shady criminals who hoarded tenancies and land for vices in the sex trade, the slave trade and illegal "ventures" in gambling and racketeering. Thomas Dunman was assigned to enforce the British colonial laws that have gone for decades ignored. He established a stricter stance against criminals "for their own good". He improved the efficiency and training of the police force. Among the measures he introduced were improved pay and working hours for policemen, setting up training programmes and night classes for members of the force, and creating a pension scheme for retired policemen. Morale in the force improved and the crime rate in Singapore decreased under his leadership. Dunman was the founding president of The Tanglin Club in 1865. Dunman was also one of the founding members of Orchard Road Presbyterian Church in Singapore. Many students and elite alumni of the school are also affiliated with this church, although the majority at Dunman High School are freethinkers or Buddhists, Taoists and Confucianists, which Islam is a more common religion in Dunman Secondary School. Later life and death Dunman retired from the police force in 1871, and spent the next few years on his coconut plantation, Grove Estate (in what is now the Mountbatten area of Katong). He returned to England in 1875, and died in Bournemouth, England in 1887. Legacy Dunman's Green, the park in Singapore was named after him before its eventual renaming to Hong Lim Green in 1876 and to Hong Lim Park in 1960 respectively. Along with Dunman Road and Dunman Lane in the Katong area of Singapore, Dunman High School and Dunman Secondary School are also named after Thomas Dunman. See also Commissioner of Police (Singapore) Notes British colonial police officers 1815 births 1887 deaths