The front cover of a 1937 Tom Smith’s catalogue. Cracker historian Peter Kimpton said: “The illustrated figures, similar to those used in the company’s scraps [sheets of diecut images], bear an uncanny resemblance to Major Quality and Miss Sweetly, the Quality Street characters of confectioner John Mackintosh and Sons – Quality Street was launched in 1936.”
A page from a Tom Smith cracker catalogue, 1891-92, with the price for one dozen boxes listed as 24 shillings.
Both images courtesy Peter Kimpton – the Kathleen Kimpton Collection.
Tom Smith (1823-69) was the man who made Christmas go with a bang. His entrepreneurial invention of the Christmas cracker delighted Victorian families with the sheer variety of the crackers’ contents as well as the decorative boxes they came in.