Critchley was born in Calgary, Northwest Territories (now Alberta), Canada in 1890 and brought to England at the age of nine and attended St Bees School in Cumberland.

[3] By the end of the war he had become the youngest brigadier general in the British Imperial forces[citation needed] and had married Maryon Galt, the cousin of the wife of the press baron Sir Max Aitken, later Lord Beaverbrook.

[1] After the war Critchley involved himself in a number of business ventures in Central America before returning to the UK where he became a director of Associated Portland Cement.

[4] Critchley contested the 1929 general election as a Conservative in the Manchester Gorton constituency, a safe seat for the Labour Party where he was heavily defeated.

[7] He also took part in bobsleigh events with his son John Galt Critchley,[8] who went on to claim a silver medal at the FIBT World Championships 1939.