THE
WORLD’S FIRST IN DEPTH BOOK
ON THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTMAS CRACKER
Author Peter Kimpton with partner Rose Tibbles
displaying a pair of Victorian style cracker boxes which he designed whilst working with the Tom Smith Cracker company when it was based in Norwich, England.
Early in 2009, my researches
led me to discover that during the Christmas period of the 1st
World War - 1915 to be exact - an unknown English soldier wrote
home to his loved ones in the little Cumbrian town of Maryport.
In his letter, he related how one of his pals who shared his "buggy
hut" with him had received a parcel - amongst the contents
of which was a box of Tom Smith's crackers which, during the Truce
period, they and four others pulled wih great merriment. One can
perhaps imagine the scene and perhaps ponder for a moment as to
whether those particular "Tommies" ever escaped the carnage
and made it back in one piece to pull crackers once again in good
old "Blighty". Sadly, the odds it has to be said were
not high. Certainly, here in the 21st century, with the great majority
of all crackers on offer being manufactured in China (funnily enough
a country that does not even celebrate Christmas), the great heyday
of the Christmas cracker from 1880 to 1920 has long since gone.
But in those far off days of over a century ago when crackers really
were crackers, the great family run company of Tom Smith's had
spread its wings to all corners of not only the British Empire
but across the world in general - testament if testament were needed
to the vision and flair of the cracker's inventor Thomas Smith,
who sadly died at the unfairly young age of 46 and who never lived
to see the great progress of his original idea.
A quick scan through the many
internet sites that claim to offer a "history" of the
Christmas cracker will show that much of what is written regarding
Tom Smith and his accepted invention is little more than heresay
or speculation. Today's Christmas cracker industry has never seriously
taken the time and trouble to conduct serious research into the
man and his product, and sadly many of the so-called "facts"are
way off the mark which is a shame because the true story of the
remarkable Tom Smith is one well worth telling.
Even the much cited story of Tom Smith sitting in front of an
open fire, hearing a log go pop and getting the idea to put a "bang" in
his crackers has to be in doubt. It is a cosy little story but
whilst it may have at least some credence, the following puts the
traditional story of the "bang" in rather a different
light.
Various accounts have been given of the invention of the cracker
snap - some attributing it to Tom Smith himself. In fact snaps were
first described in the first quater if the 19th century and were
one of several exploding novelties or "detonating
works" introduced following the discovery of silver fulminate
by the English chemist Edward Charles Howard (1774 - 1816) in 1800
and the development in 1802 ( by Italian chemistry professor Luigi
Valentino Brugnatelli (1761 - 1818) ) of a satisfactory method of
preparing it. Snaps were evidently in use for amusement and for practical
jokes long before Tom Smith introduced them as an essential component
of Christmas crackers around 1860.
In his book "A History of Fireworks", Alan St Hill Brock
(1886 - 1956 ) of Brocks Fireworks, referred to an old book "The
Art of Making Fireworks by Plain and Easy Rules" by T. Angelo.
Brock says this was published "c.1816", and he wrote of
Angelo:-
"The sole addition he makes to the material published elsewhere
is a description of what he calls "Waterloo Crackers" in
which Fulminating Silver is employed. These are the 'snaps' used
today in Christmas crackers to supply their 'bangs', although fifty
years were to elapse before the late Tom Brown, - for many years
an experimental chemist to my firm - hit upon the idea of their construction
and sold it to the late Tom Smith".
* These details kindly supplied by chemist Barry Sturman from
Australia, April 2008 in his research for the forthcoming Encyclopedia
Dictionary of Pyrotechnics (to be published by the Journal of Pyrotechnics).