Sir Elly Kadoorie (1867–1944), businessman, was known until 1901 as Eleazar Silas Kelly. The Kadoories, a Sephardi Jewish family, emigrated from Baghdad, Elly arriving in Hong Kong in 1880 with his brother Ellis Kadoorie. Elly was first employed as a clerk in E. D. Sassoon & Co., later becaming a broker.

Elly Kadoorie founded Sir Elly Kadoorie & Sons and earned a reputation both for his consequent directorships in several key Hong Kong and Shanghai companies, including China Light and Power (CLP), and for his widespread philanthropy.

Elly Kadoorie married Laura Samuel (d. 1919), daughter of A. Mocatta of Mocatta and Goldsmid. Together they had three sons: Lawrence (1899-1993) and Horace (1902-1995), the youngest son having died in infancy. The family moved to England in 1910, but Sir Elly returned to Shanghai in 1911 where he reconstitutioned rubber companies in co-operation with the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. Meanwhile, Lawrence and his brother Horace attended school at Britain. In 1914 boys travelled to Canada for a family reunion and, unable to return to England, continued on to Shanghai to join their father. After their mother died in 1919 the two brothers took on the responsibility of building up the Kadoorie name in Asia with their father.

After the fall of Shanghai in 1942 the Kadoorie family was interred to Japanese prison camp where Elly Kadoorie died in 1944.