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).

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