Tales of a Singapore Entrepreneur
The Straits Times Annual, 1 January 1978, Pg 22 23
Tan Cheng Siang was 92 years young when the author got his first glimpse of this venerable, kindly Chinese gentleman in a courtly scene on the Singapore wharf, minutes before the Rajah Brooke sailed for a 10‑day cruise to Brunei.
Cheng Siang was surrounded by his family, gently supported on either side by his two sons, Choon Hoe and Choon Guan, as they escorted him towards the gangway. Suddenly, he stopped and looked up for a moment at the great ship and her passengers, who were watching with interest all the last‑minute sailing activities on the wharf. He bowed, and then this charming retinue moved on, disappearing into the bowels of the ship below.
No one on board that morning knew much about this modest philanthropist—so let me tell you his story, which stretches back some 130 years to 1847, beginning with his grandfather, Tan Kim Tian, and ending, sadly, in June 1977, when Tan Cheng Siang died peacefully, a grand old 94.
Tan Kim Tian
At 15, Tan Kim Tian (1832–1882) travelled in 1847 from Malacca with almost empty pockets to seek his fortune in the new trading center of Singapore, founded in 1819. He started as an office boy in the employ of Paterson Simons Merchants, with an office in Commercial Square (now Raffles Place). There, he caught the eye of one of the partners, William Paterson.
Paterson took a personal interest in young Tan and arranged for him to attend evening school, where he became proficient in the trading language—English. In due course, Tan Kim Tian became a trusted storekeeper in the firm’s Produce Department, dealing in gutta‑percha, pepper, cloves, and rattan from Dutch Borneo (now Sabah). While employed at Paterson Simons, Kim Tian also became responsible for chartering coastal ships to bring in produce for his employer.
At the age of 33, fifteen years later, Kim Tian retired from Paterson & Simons, with the understanding that his old firm would give him cargo support in his own proposed shipping venture. With his elder son, Tan Beng Wan (1850–1890), as partner, he founded Tan Kim Tian & Sons Steamship Co. Ltd. in 1865.
Tan Beng Wan
An English gold watch (still in the Tan family’s possession today) was presented to Tan Kim Tian in 1865, inscribed by William Paterson. It has since been passed down within the family, with the following engravings:
Tan Kim Tian to Tan Hup Leong, 1882
Tan Hup Leong to Tan Cheng San, 6.3.24
Tan Cheng San to Tan Cheng Siang, 1940
Opposite the present glittering skyscraper, Ocean Building on Collyer Quay, once stood the site where Paterson and Simons built their Singapore headquarters in 1864 (demolished in 1974). The offices were above and warehouses below; the verandahs above the five‑foot way were used for observing and signalling ships. In the 1870s, coastal sailing ships discharged at the D’Almeida Pier, opposite the road of the same name, still so named today, onto Collyer Quay. Cargo was manhandled (or carried by bullock cart) into the warehouses facing the sea. If not transhipped, it might be sold at the other end of the warehouse, which led onto Commercial Square, where auctions generally took place in those days.
Tan Kim Tian & Sons Steamship Company Limited prospered after they decided to focus on steamships rather than sail—the first among Singapore Chinese shipowners to do so. Tan Kim Tian, and later his son, Tan Beng Wan, purchased steamships second‑hand or ordered them specially from builders in the U.K.
Among the fine crafts they owned in those early days were
Rangoon: 498 gross tonnage, built by Pile Spence, West Hartlepool, in 1860; bought by Kim Tian in 1871. Unfortunately, she was wrecked near Finisterre in 1873, bound from Singapore to Glasgow.
Celestial: 1,013 gross, built in 1873 by Blake & Co., Northfleet.
Penang: 867 gross, built in 1881 by Ramage and Ferguson, Leith.
Giang Ann: built by Wigham Richardson & Co., Newcastle, in 1888.
Giang Seng: 1,183 gross, built by John Scott & Co., Kinghorn, in 1896.
Kongsee: 1,072 gross, built by C. Mitchell & Co., Newcastle, in 1878.
Zweena: 1,470 gross, built by Blumer & Co., Sunderland, in 1889.
Flevo: 302 gross, built by Boon, Molema & de Cock, Hoogezand, in 1891; one of the first five ships that formed the Straits Steamship Co. Ltd. fleet when it was founded in 1890.
Billiton: 336 gross, built by Blackwood & Gordon, acquired by Tan Beng Wan in 1886.
The father‑and‑son partnership worked well. Then, in 1882, 50‑year‑old Tan Kim Tian died. Tan Beng Wan took sole charge of the shipping business under the style of Tan Kim Tian & Son Steamship Company. He became a municipal counsellor in 1889, but due to overwork and devotion to the business, he died in 1890 at the age of 40—a respected and influential man and a close friend of another famous Tan clansman, the Honourable Tan Jiak Kim, J.P. K.C.M.G., a Straits Steamship founder and director.
The shipping expertise in the Tan Kim Tian Steamship had now been lost, a fact which, unfortunately, the family failed to recognize at the time. Their assets included land at Thomson Road (34.02 hectares), property in Telok Ayer Street, and godowns at Havelock Road—all amounting to a substantial family fortune.
Tan Cheng Siang was the only son of Tan Beng Wan, born on September 9, 1883. He lived until his death at the family home, Botan House, Neil Road. At the time of his father’s death in 1890, Cheng Siang was seven years old. With his uncles—Tan Hup Seng, aged 23; Tan Hup Leong, a teenager; and Tan Hup Swee, a mere boy—he inherited the family business and properties.
The two inexperienced youngsters, Hup Seng and Hup Leong, unwisely attempted to manage the shipping business themselves. Inexperience, coupled with extravagance, soon put them in financial difficulties.
Into the breach stepped that redoubtable Dutchman, T.C. Bogaardt, partner in Mansfield and chairman of the newly formed Straits Steamship Company Ltd., who had gotten wind of the situation through his head clerk, Koh Seck Tian. Acting as broker, Koh Seck Tian negotiated the purchase of a 50 percent share in Tan Kim Tian Steamship, with an agreement that provided for joint management and retention of respective identities and trades while sharing the Head Office of Straits Steamship at 1 Raffles Quay. (Mansfield and Straits were entirely separate companies in those days.)
After Bogaardt retired from Straits, his position was taken over by C.W. Laird (from the famous Liverpool shipbuilding firm of the same name), who became chairman and general manager of both Straits and Tan Kim Tian Steamships in 1889. Nothing but disagreement between the respective managers ensued until finally, a decision by the young Tan uncles to borrow money from a wealthy family friend, the “Java Sugar King,” Oei Tiong Ham, solved the situation.
Straits Steamship agreed to sell their Tan Kim Tian Steamship holdings to Oei Tiong Ham, who in turn held them as security against the loan. The two shipping lines, which had never encroached on each other’s trade, now became divorced by mutual consent.
Tan Cheng Siang’s mother, Mrs. Tan Beng Wan, was persuaded by the uncles (who were also trustees) that the only way to carry on the family shipping business, now in urgent need of cash, was to persuade her young son Cheng Siang, also a trustee of his father’s estate, to sign an agreement to sell his father’s properties. With this action, the uncles made Cheng Siang a partner in the firm of Tan Kim Tian Steamship Company.
Mrs Tan Beng Wan nee Lim Imm Neo
Two years later, in 1905, the firm again got bogged down in financial difficulties when frustrated creditors petitioned the High Court for a bankruptcy order.
Tan Cheng Siang appeared as a partner in court before Mr. Justice Thornton, who promptly declared him to have been underage when he signed the authority to sell his father’s property, thus exposing the deception on the part of trustees Tan Hup Seng and Lim Siew Hock, brother‑in‑law of Tan Beng Wan. Tan Cheng Siang was therefore discharged by the court.
In consequence, the Tan Kim Tian Steamship was acquired for a song by Oei Tiong Ham of the Kian Gwan Company at auction. Kian Gwan had branches all over Indonesia and in the main ports of present‑day Malaysia as well.
Oei Tiong Ham’s ships later became known as Heap Eng Moh Steamship Company, registered in 1912. A Chin Chew (purser/businessman) by the name of Lee Hoon Leong—grandfather of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, the present Prime Minister of Singapore—became General Manager of Oei Tiong Ham’s fleet of ships. Heap Eng Moh Steamship was reorganized in 1931 following the death of Oei Tiong Ham, when the Netherlands Trading Society became an important shareholder.
When Oei Tiong Ham acquired the Tan fleet, he arranged for a regular allowance to be remitted to the Tan family from Cheribon, Indonesia—a kindly gesture. Meanwhile, Tan Cheng Siang’s young uncle, Tan Hup Seng, became involved in horse racing and threatened to commit suicide if prosecuted by Cheng Siang’s mother, Mrs. Tan Beng Wan. Young Uncle Tan Hup Leong embarked on the life of a playboy and sailed away on a world tour aboard the Blue Funnel steamer Teucer, accompanied by his secretary, Mr. J. Robb. The Singapore press claimed at the time that this was the first instance of a young Straits‑born Chinese adventuring on a globe‑trotting tour. Younger uncle Tan Hup Swee died as a result of the shock of the whole affair.
Tan Cheng Siang grew up to quietly but firmly arrange the family affairs in such a way that, by combining astute investments with services to ships—contracting labor and competitively providing materials—they kept afloat. Among his clients were the Singapore Harbour Board (now the Port of Singapore Authority), the Jurong Town Corporation, and a long association with the Nippon Yusen Kaisha Line, which still continues.
On March 10, 1972, this third‑generation and then oldest living Rafflesian—an ex‑pupil of Raffles Institution—performed a symbolic act marking continuity from the old to the new, at the age of 89. Witnessed by Philip Liau, principal of Raffles Institution at the time, the school flag was pulled down at Beach Road and handed to Cheng Siang, who, in turn, handed it over to the school prefect, Tan Geok Sin. The official party then drove to Grange Road, where the flag now proudly flies from the roof of the Raffles Institution’s fine new building. To perpetuate anew the names of his illustrious Rafflesian ancestors, Cheng Siang donated a theater to the new school. Salvaged from the old Beach Road building is a stone recording the donation of a “tiffin shed” (canteen) by Tan Kim Tian in 1888, which is also now installed at the new Grange Road school.
The Tan Cheng Siang story would not be complete without a visit to the Tan Si Chong Su (or Tan Seng Haw) Temple at Magazine Road–Boat Quay. Constructed exactly 100 years ago, on December 22, 1876, beside the backwaters of the Singapore River, this attractive old Chinese temple was built to exhort protection from the Celestial Gods for the Tan clan residing in the South Seas (Nanyang), as its other name, “Po Chiak Kung,” implies.
It was built from the many contributions made by leading businessmen of the day, among whom were Tan Beng Swee, J.P. (1805–1864), father of Tan Jiak Kim, and Tan Kim Cheng (1829–1892), elder son of Tan Tock Seng, founder of the Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Grandfather Tan Kim Tian was appointed Assistant Director of the temple in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), according to the characters on the tablet inside the door. The Tan ancestral spirit tablets are found in places of honor above the altar within. Those tablets shrouded in crimson silk are those of the Tans who are still living. The most recently donated plaque (October 2, 1964) in this temple was presented by Tun Tan Siew Sin, former Minister of Finance, Malaysia, and great‑grandnephew of Tan Beng Swee. His message in Chinese characters means, “Achieve creditable efforts in your ancestors’ honor.”
Botan House, the Tan family home, has stood on about 34,376 square meters at Neil Road since 1883, the year in which Tan Cheng Siang himself was born. It derives its name either from a shortened version of “Botanic”—as there was, and still is, an abundance of fruit trees and flowering shrubs in the grounds—or from a certain flower indigenous to China. The trees there today are as old as the house itself.
Many Chinese youngsters, now middle‑aged, have admitted to climbing over the wall of Botan House to steal mangoes from the Tan garden when no one was about. In those days, Neil Road was very much in the country, and the area abounded with fruit trees. Before he died, Tan Cheng Siang had this piece of advice to give to all the future little fruit‑pickers:
“Work hard, be thrifty, and make yourself indispensable.”
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