Its products have been used in thousands of buildings across the United Kingdom, including the Houses of Parliament and Tower of London, and are features particularly associated with the Art Deco and Modernist movements in early 20th-century architecture.

[2] 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.

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.

The 1920s saw operations established in South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and in Washington, D.C., in the USA, followed by a company in Shanghai, China in 1931.

During the 1950s, Crittall began to manufacture aluminium windows and curtain walling, and in the 1960s was instrumental in the development of pressure chamber weather performance testing standards that are still used in the UK today.