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Harvester House
Located across Peter Street from the
Free Trade Hall is Harvester House, a warehouse designed
by Clegg and Knowles in 1868. It was built for the Ralli
Brothers, traders in a wide variety of cargo and
shipping it to and from a wide variety of bases
including Constantinople, Romania, Egypt, Russia,
London, Trieste, Marseilles and Vienna.
The Ralli family had a talent for
foreseeing problems in world trade. In 1851 they
opened a branch in India at the ideal moment to be
able to take advantage of the need for a substitute
for Russian hemp when it became scarce as a result of
the Crimean War. Then, in 1861 a Bombay office enabled
them to provide Indian cotton to Liverpool to replace
the cotton from the US Southern States when the Union
Army blockaded the Confederate ports.
The Ralli brothers of the firm's title soon comprised all the sons of Stephanos Ralli. In Manchester Eustratios Ralli was in charge of the business. |
