CRITTALL, MR AND MRS F.H. — Fifty Years of Work and Play.

London: Constable & Co.Ltd, 1934. 1st edition. "i have described my childhood and schooldays, the beginnings in Bank Street, Braintree, of what is now the Crittall Manufacturing Company, Limited, its rapid and remarkable development from obscurity to great dimensions. Trade Unions, Wages and Housing, are also dealt with, concluding with some comments of Safeguarding." (Author's preface). Autobiography and industrial history with concluding section "Strange Lands and Stranger People" devoted to extraxts from the author's wife's travel diaries. Pp.260, black & white portrait frontispiece + 31 further black & white photo illustrations, loss to top third of front free endpaper, owner's details to inside front board. Brown cloth, dustwrapper is worn with long vertical tear to spine edge and losses to top and tail and corners, but is now in a removable clear protective wrap. Scarce. G+/ Fair.** "Crittall’s story begins in 1849, with an ironmonger’s shop in Braintree, England, owned by Frances Berrington Crittall. In 1884, his son, Francis Henry Crittall, took the helm and made the pivotal decision to help pioneer the production of steel-framed windows.Over the coming decades, Crittall grew rapidly. During both World Wars, Crittall factories shifted production to support the war effort. Women workers made munitions and crucial war supplies, including Bailey bridges, wing spars for planes and windows for military buildings." (CrittallWindowsUK).