Christmas cracker and Tom Smith of London

When it is kept: Christmas dinner
Where it fits in the year: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

The Christmas cracker is credited to Tom Smith, a London baker and sweet-maker with a shop on Goswell Road in Clerkenwell in the 1840s.^1,2 He copied a French sweet, a sugared almond in a twist of tissue paper, after a visit to Paris, and sold it at Christmas as a "bon bon".^1,2 To sell the sweets all year he added a small love message inside the wrapper.^1,2

The bang comes from two strips of paper. One carries a tiny bit of a chemical and the other is rough. Pulling them makes friction and a small pop.¹ The date of the bang is disputed. One account says Smith patented a first device in 1847 and perfected it in the 1860s. Another says he added the snap in 1860.^1,2,3 Either way, the bang arrived between the 1840s and the 1860s.

Tom Smith’s son Walter added the paper hats and the little gifts, and bought novelties from Europe, America and Japan.^1,3 By the 1890s the firm had about 2,000 workers and a big factory in Finsbury Square, London.^1,2 The National Archives holds the firm’s box labels from its copyright registrations, including designs registered in 1878 and 1907.⁴

A tale, not a record

Smith is said to have got the idea for the bang from the crackle of a log on the fire. The V&A says only that it was "reportedly" inspired this way. No record from Smith’s own time was found.^1,3

Sources