Tom Smith who owned a sweet shop in London was the originator of the cracker. In the 1840s Tom found that people like sugar almonds, but while he was in France he discovered a variety of sweets wrapped up in a twist of paper. These bonbons were popular, so Tom decided to copy them. When he noticed that young men were buying them to give to their sweethearts he began to place “love mottoes” on small slips of paper inside the sweet wrapping.
In 1846 Tom’s thoughts turned towards Christmas – instead of sweets he thought he would place toys and novelties inside the twisted wrapping. He experimented with this and the idea of producing a wrapping that could be pulled apart – just like the cracker as we know it today.