Page 363 Big Hill Country 1977
0. A. Critchley bought the Stapleton Ranch on the Bow River some six miles west of Calgary in the 1880s, paying $3.00 per acre for it. Here he raised two sons, Cecil (born 1890) and Walter (1892), by his first wife, Maria Newbolt, who died in childbirth in 1892. He then married Winnifred Holt of the Holt Shipping Line, in Liverpool, who bore him a son, Jack, in November 1893, and twin sons, Dick and Gerald, in 1906. In 1899 he sold the ranch on the Bow for $10.00 per acre and returned to England until 1909. He and his family came again to Canada and bought the original Bell-Irving ranch in Grand Valley from Robert Meiklejon. It was to this ranch that Margaret Melly came from Liverpool, in the summer of 1911, to stay with her aunt, Winnie Critchley, and met Duncan Kerfoot, eldest son on the neighboring Virginia Ranch. They were married in Liverpool in 1912.
A. Critchley took in Gilbert Rhodes as a partner and ranched in Grand Valley until the outbreak of World War One. He took his brand from his initials, 0 bar A. He was a founding member of the Ranchmen’s Club in Calgary.
With the coming of war, he joined two of his sons, Cecil and Jack, in Lord Strathcona’s Horse and served with them in France. He died in 1935, in London. still actively assisting Cecil to run his greyhound racing establishment.
Cecil joined the Straths in 1910 and had a meteoric military career, being promoted to Brigadier General at the age of 27 and playing a part in the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918. Between the wars he purchased the White City Stadium in London (site of the 1908 Olympics) and there established greyhound racing. He also played championship golf and was elected to the British Parliament as a Conservative in 1934. During World War Two he was in charge of all initial training for the R.A.F. and was made an Air Commodore. Later he reorganized and directed British Overseas Airways Corporation most successfully until he went blind in 1953. During his distinguished career he was awarded the C.M.G., C.B.E. and D.S.O. He died in the 1960s.
Walter joined the 10th Infantry Battalion at the outbreak of World War One and became commander of this Battalion in France, where he was awarded the D.S.O. for gallantry in action. During World War Two he trained troops in Canada.
Jack, serving with Lord Strathcona’s Horse, and temporarily in command of the regiment, died of wounds received in a cavalry charge on entrenched positions, in 1917. He was 24 years old.
The twins, Dick and Gerald, served with Indian Cavalry regiments and became a Brigadier and a Colonel in World War Two. Like all the family they were great athletes and fine horsemen and played high handicap polo in the 1930s.
