Kadoorie Family

The Kadoorie family are trying to discover their antecedents and how they came to arrive in China during the late 19th Century. You have the most marvellous photos of that era but you may not have any records to throw light on the family's background.

It is thought that there were 7 Kadoorie brothers in Baghdad of whom 2 remained behind while the others left for India. Ezekiel, the oldest, it is thought joined David Sassoon in Calcutta in 1870 before asking 3 younger brothers to join him over the next 10 years. Moses (possibly Silas Moses), Elly (Eliezer) and Ellis.

Elly left for Hong Kong - aged 15 - arriving there on 20th May 1880. After several years with the Sassoons (E D Sassoon & Co) mainly in the Northern Treaty ports, he borrowed $100 from Ellis and set up the broking firm of Benjamin, Kelly & Potts in Hong Kong.

If you can add anything to this, we would be most grateful.

Frances Mocatta
London

Scribe:
In 1959 the graves from the four Jewish cemeteries were transferred to an international cemetery in a western suburb of the city.

With the on-set of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), gravestones were uprooted, some smashed, and other removed entirely. The sites of the cemeteries became parking lots, parks, and a cement factory. Only four Jewish graves remained undisturbed – those of deceased luminaries Sir Elly Kadoorie, his wife Lady Laura Kadoorie, Charles Aharon, and Yosef Sasson – in the famous cemetery that also houses Soong Ching Ling, now the Soong Ching Ling Memorial Park.

The Kadoories need not only to look to the past but also to look to the future and establish a sumptuous Iraqi Community Centre in London to commemorate their name.