The trade jumped at Tom Smith's latest novelty, and he was snowed under with orders. Very quickly he began to refine his product - he dropped the sweet and the 'bon bon' name, calling his new crackers Cosaques, but he kept the motto and added a surprise gift. Delighted at his overnight success Tom decided to explore the export market and took his cracker abroad. At this time, only one design of cracker was being made and to his horror, an Eastern manufacturer seized his idea, copied it and delivered a consignment of crackers to Britain just before Christmas. Not surprisingly, in true fashion, Tom immediately rose to the challenge; he designed 8 different kinds of cracker, worked his staff day and night and distributed stocks throughout the country also in time for Christmas. After this he never looked back. Tom Smith lived to see the new branch of his firm grow to swamp the original premises in Goswell Road. The company moved to Finsbury Square in the City of London where it remained until 1953. When he died he left the business to his three sons, Tom Henry and Walter. A few years later, a drinking fountain was erected in Finsbury Square by Walter Smith in memory of his mother, Mary, and to commemorate the life of the man who invented the great British Cracker.
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' crackle' would add the necessary excitement and spark to his novelty
'bon bon' and it was now simply a matter of experimentation to find
a compound which gave a satisfactory bang without going to far. The
size of the 'bon bon' would also need to increase significally to accommodate
the 'cracking mechanism' but the shape remained the same and the motto
was still included. Eventually Tom perfected his chemical explosion
to create a 'pop' caused by friction when the wrapping was broken This
eventually became the snap and the cracker was born.