Ralli Brothers

The five Ralli brothers, Zannis a.k.a. John (1785–1859), Augustus (1792–1878), Pandia a.k.a. Zeus (1793–1865), Toumazis (1799–1858), and Eustratios (1800–84) founded Ralli Brothers, perhaps the most successful expatriate Greek merchant business of the Victorian era.

Born to a wealthy merchant family of Chios, their father Stephenos Ralli (1755–1827) had settled in Marseille, but recognised that the nexus of trading had changed in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, and sent his eldest son John to London to explore business opportunities.

John started trading in oriental silk and Russian grain in exchange for British textiles, and fetched his brothers over to help, incorporating as Ralli Brothers in London. Brother Eustratios ran the textile export operations from Manchester, Toumazis sourced raw materials and grain from Odessa and Constantinople, Pandia financed it from the Baltic Exchange, and Augustus oversaw the Mediterranean operations from Marseille.

Their move away from Greece was prescient as it preceded the turmoil that was about to befall the Ottoman Empire that resulted in the Chios massacre and subsequent Greek diaspora, and saw their traditional home markets closed.

They were quick to seize new opportunities created by wars, political events, and the opening of new markets, such as corn, cotton, silk, opium and fruit, rapidly establishing major trading operations across the Mediterranean, Russia, reaching out as far as St Petersburg, Taganrog, Tabriz, Alexandria, Smyrna, and Syria.

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