Tom Smith (confectioner)

Smith opened his first shop in Goswell Road in Clerkenwell in London's East End in the 1840s where he baked wedding cakes and confectionery on the premises.

[3][7][10][11] In reality 'Waterloo Crackers' as they were sometimes called had been around for decades by 1860 after the discovery of silver fulminate by the chemist Edward Charles Howard in 1800 and its further development by Luigi Valentino Brugnatelli in 1802 of a safe way of using it in amusements and for practical jokes.

Smith bought the design and formula for the "snap" in his crackers from a chemist called Tom Brown who had worked for the Brocks Fireworks company.

In the 1861 Census Tom Smith is listed as living at Brontë Cottage in Hampstead and described himself as a "manufacturing confectioner employing 7 men and 16 women".

Tom Smith died at his home at 320 City Road aged 46 in 1869[15] from stomach cancer and is buried in Highgate Cemetery in London.