Crittall Windows: Difference between revisions
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The distinct horizontal bars of Crittall's steel windows are the stand-out, iconic feature of 1930s [['Moderne' | The distinct horizontal bars of Crittall's steel windows are the stand-out, iconic feature of 1930s [['Moderne' Houses]]. You either love them or hate them (we must declare at this stage that Tumbla loves them). | ||
==History== | ==History== | ||
Revision as of 11:24, 9 December 2012
The distinct horizontal bars of Crittall's steel windows are the stand-out, iconic feature of 1930s 'Moderne' Houses. You either love them or hate them (we must declare at this stage that Tumbla loves them).
History
The origins of the company date back to 1849, when Francis Berrington Crittall bought the Bank Street ironmongery in Braintree, Essex. However, it was not until 1884 that the company - by this time run by the founder's son Francis Henry Crittall (1860–1935) - began to manufacture metal windows. Five years later (1889), the Crittall Manufacturing Company Ltd was incorporated. At this time the firm's output in a two-year period was 20 tonnes. In 1880 the company employed 11 men, by the 1890s this figure was 34, by 1918 500.[3]
In 1907, Crittall began to operate the Detroit Steel Product Co, the first steel window factory in the United States.
During the First World War, Crittall's factories were used in munitions production, but postwar the company returned to steel window manufacture. It formed a manufacturing agreement with Belgian firm Braat in 1918 and opened a works in Witham, Essex in 1919, partly to supply standard metal windows for the UK government's housing scheme