Alfred Critchley

Brigadier-General Alfred Cecil Critchley, CMG, CBE, DSO (23 February 1890 – 9 February 1963) was an entrepreneur and politician in the United Kingdom. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) from 1934 to 1935.

Critchley was born in Calgary, Canada in 1890 and brought to England at the age of nine. His first career was a military one, initially in Lord Strathcona's Horse, a Canadian military regiment and towards the end of the First World War, in the Royal Flying Corps. He was seconded to the RFC on 4 March 1918 with the temporary rank of brigadier-general at the age of only 28. Remaining in the RFC and them Royal Air Force to the end of the War, Critchley played a senior role in organizing training. By the end of the war he had become the youngest Brigadier-General in the British Imperial forces and had married Maryon Galt, the cousin of the wife of the press baron Sir Max Aitken, later Lord Beaverbrook.

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. In 1926 he formed the private company, the Greyhound Racing Association. Under the auspices of this company he became a significant sporting entrepreneur in the UK. He introduced greyhound racing to the UK in Belle Vue, Manchester in 1926. The success of this initial trial led Critchley to purchase the White City Stadium in London. He subsequently built both the Harringay Stadium and Harringay Arena.