Crittendens’ was a chain of grocery stores and liquor outlets operating in Melbourne, Australia, in the 20th century. The first store opened in Malvern in 1917 and the firm went on to have a total of 7 retail outlets, mostly in the affluent south-eastern suburbs. The business was bought out by Myer in 1982. Some stores were then closed and others were opened, including three in Sydney, as the firm changed hands a number of times. At one stage members of the Crittenden family briefly (1989-1990) regained control of the business. One store, located in Toorak, still operated under the Crittenden name in 2018, but with no connection to the family. History Oscar Rupert George Crittenden (1887-1954) was born in South Australia in 1887. The family came to Victoria soon after and settled on a farm near Lake Hindmarsh. In December 1891, Oscar’s father, James, aged 33, died after being kicked by a horse, leaving a widow and four children. The family moved to Melbourne in 1906. In that year Oscar became an employee of the Moorabbin Co-operative Society in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. He remained in the store in Cheltenham till March 1912, when he left to work in a grocery store owned by David Kidd in Prahran. In 1917, he borrowed £620 from his mother and used it to take over and stock a small grocery store at 138 Glenferrie Road, Malvern. The business then traded as O.R. Crittenden, grocer. The staff consisted of one man and a girl, and newspaper advertising state the store was "noted for good butter and eggs." By August 1930, the business employed 20 people, five of whom took telephone orders for groceries to be delivered in the firm's four vans. The store catered to the affluent suburbs of Malvern, Toorak and Armadale and carried imported gourmet foods not widely available elsewhere. Some commodities - such as coffee, dried fruit, butter and bacon - was bought in bulk and repackaged under the Crittenden brand. In 1936 the business opened its second store, taking over an existing business at 569 Malvern Road, Toorak. In 1948, the business was registered as a company, O. R. Crittenden Ltd., grocers, with a capital of £25,000. The firm also began to retail fine wines and spirits in bottle-shops within the grocery stores during the 1930s. Crittendens employed 60 staff at the Malvern and Toorak stores, delivering to