Tan Kim Tian
Shipping magnate who founded the Tan Kim Tian and Son Steamship Company in 1871, the first local Chinese shipping company to build and purchase steamships
Tan Kim Tian (1832 — 1882) was the co-founder of the Tan Kim Tian and Son Steamship Company and the first president of the Tan Si Chong Su, a Chinese temple in Singapore.
Early life and education
Tan was born in Malacca in 1832. He travelled to Singapore in 1847.
Career
Tan became an employee of Paterson Simons Merchants shortly after arriving in Singapore. Merchant William Paterson, who was a partner of the firm, arranged for him to attend English school, allowing him to become fluent in English. He later became a shopkeeper in the firm's Produce Department.
After retiring from Paterson Simons Merchants, he founded the Tan Kim Tian and Son Steamship Company with his son, Tan Beng Wan in 1865. The business prospered following their decision to concentrate on steamships instead of sail. He was the first president of Tan Si Chong Su. He also owned the Kim Tian's Pier on Havelock Road along the Singapore River.
“Tan Kim Tian” enters the record as shipping magnate who founded the Tan Kim Tian and Son Steamship Company in 1871, the first local Chinese shipping company to build and purchase steamships. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tian, Shipping and magnate can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Tan Kim Tian” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Tian, Shipping and magnate provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q97817671. VIAF identifies the subject as 71158066406008430961. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1832, 1882, 1847 and 1865.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tan Kim Tian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.