He was a rubber plantation merchant and philanthropist. A Peranakan.
Tan was noted in Malayan history as the first man to plant rubber on a commercial basis, after he was introduced to rubber planting by Henry Nicholas Ridley. Subsequently, Tan started a 22-acre ‏(89,000 m2)‏ rubber estate at Bukit Lintang. He then ventured his rubber plantation business into Sri Lanka. According to his family, Tan's rubber plantation still belonged to the family.---From Wikipedia