A: Hi, I’m Andrew 

S: and I’m Steph.

Time for a new mini portion of Norfolk festiveness. What has Norwich got to do with Christmas Crackers? Andrew, tell us all…

A: Well, did you know the Christmas Cracker was invented by Tom Smith, a
confectioner’s apprentice in London, in 1847. He was actually trying to work out a way to get ‘love notes’ into his wrapped bon-bons. Liking the idea of a wrapping that could be pulled apart, Smith later dropped the sweets for small toys or trinkets and decided to add a small ‘popper’ mechanism (supposedly after hearing the sound of his fire crackling) and aimed the product more toward the Christmas season. This was the birth of the Christmas cracker!

Tom Smith’s product became popular and was noticed here in Norwich, with Caley’s, a prominent Norfolk confectioner, deciding to release their own version of the Christmas Cracker in 1898. Although sales were nowhere near those of Tom Smith’s brand, Caley’s own cracker became world famous. In 1899 the company employed 300 hands (mostly young girls) manufacturing two million crackers, which were sold across the world. They were already manufacturing 150 different varieties of cracker each containing a conundrum and one of 500 different fillings.

After the second world war, Caley’s was merged with Smith’s brand and in 1953 Tom Smith opened his cracker factory on Salhouse Road in Norwich and started production. They shipped crackers all over the world with up to 50 million being produced a year in the 1980s. The royal family enjoyed specially made crackers from Norwich at Christmas and Princess Diana commissioned bespoke crackers for royal weddings!

However, things took a turn in the 1990s when Guinness Mahon Ltd took over, installing a new management team and two years later in 1998, exactly 100 years after cracker production started in Norwich, the factories closed. Today, the cracker industry continues to do well, although now based in South Wales, and the name Tom Smith is still synonymous with them.

S: FACT TIME! Did you know Listeners?

The biggest ever cracker made by Tom Smith & Company was here in Norwich at their Salhouse Road premises. It was made as a special fund raising prize for the Confectioners Benevolent Fund and measured over 12 ft. long and 2 ft. in diameter. The cracker contained 250 toys, party hats and mottoes.

Come back again tomorrow for another little bite-sized portion of Norfolk festive-ness.