This is the story of how Frank Smith and his friend Jim Viney, began in a small way in Cricklewood and built the large and successful company of Smith’s Crisps.
Early years
Frank was born in 1875, in Hackney. His parents had left their native Suffolk by the mid-1860s for London, where his father ran a fruiterer and florist business. By 1881 the family were living over their corner shop at 128 Stoke Newington High Street, moving to Kingsland Road by 1891. Frank started working when he was 10-years old and went with his father to Covent Garden each morning to buy produce for their shop. 
Frank married Jessie Minnie Ramplin in Southwark in 1902. The couple and their six-year old daughter Laura were living in Mona Road Deptford in 1911, when Frank gave his occupation as ‘commercial traveller, confectionery’. Soon after this he went to work for a wholesale grocer by the name of Carter, in Smithfield. Carter had a side-line making potato crisps and Frank saw great potential in the product and approached his boss with the idea of setting up crisp making factories, but Carter refused to invest.
Cricklewood
Around 1919-20, Frank with the help of two friends raised £10,000 capital, which he used to start up on his own account. His co-investors may have been sleeping partners as the company took his name and was a Smith family business from the start. It was run from garages behind the large Crown public house on Cricklewood Broadway. Here Jessie washed, cut, and fried the potatoes. Frank’s jobs were sourcing the correct type of potato (many were unsuitable) and marketing.
The first bar snack
Pubs were probably the only outlets to begin with, until Frank bought a pony and trap and travelled the streets to sell his grease proof bags of crisps. Publicans were initially sceptical, saying no one would be interested, but they soon changed their minds when the addition of salt resulted in higher bar sales, because the crisps made punters thirsty. Frank supplied premises with saltshakers but so many were stolen, he introduced the iconic ‘twist of salt’ in a blue wrapper to every bag sold. People went through the ritual of locating the twist and unwrapping it, then emptying the salt into the bag and shaking to mix it with the crisps.
A pinch of salt made his fortune
The business was so successful that it was never necessary to spend more than £6,000 of the original start up fund. It soon outgrew the modest garage premises and around 1921, Frank found a new London home nearby in Somerton Road, occupying part of a disused Handley Page aircraft factory. It acquired 8,000 acres in Lincolnshire to grow potatoes and opened factories at Portsmouth, Birmingham, Paisley, Heaton, and Stockport. In 1927 Frank bought out his partner Jim Viney. More manufacturing sites were added including one at Brentford on the North Circular in 1938.
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| Smith's Factory, Brentford |
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| Smith's van outside the Heaton, Newcastle factory |
We don’t know Frank and Jessie’s address when he started the business. In 1924, they were living at 48 Northwick Avenue in Kenton, moving to No.57 (1931-1934). Their daughter Laura married Cyril Johnston Scott in 1931. He had begun working for Smith’s as a commercial traveller and was elected to the Board two years after his marriage.
The Smith’s next and final home was a substantial detached house on a large plot: ‘The Chestnuts’ in Osterley, later numbered as 350 Jersey Road and since demolished. Jessie died suddenly on 4 November 1937 at the Exeter Hotel Bournemouth and was brought back home, for burial on the 9th in the ground attached to Heston Parish Church.
In August 1939, Frank aged 64, married his second wife, twenty-six-year-old Ida Broughton, the daughter of an insurance broker, at Brentford Registrar Office. In 1939 the couple were sharing the Jersey Road house with Ida’s parents.
During WWII, most of Smith’s output went to the military, and it was rumoured that some packers put messages or names on small pieces of paper in the crisp bags, to contact lonely troops. To boost the war effort, the company bought a Spitfire and gave it to the nation while Frank presented a mobile canteen to his local Hounslow cadet unit.
It was announced in July 1956 that Frank was to stand down as managing director, to be succeeded by his son-in-law Cyril.
Aged 81, Frank died a few months later at his home on 28 December. The death certificate recorded the causes as myocarditis and senile decay. Frank’s funeral announcement made three specific requests: ‘No flowers. No ladies to attend and no mourning.’ He left £61,477 after tax.
In 1960, Frank’s daughter Laura was granted a divorce from Cyril Scott on the grounds of his misconduct. Four days after the decree became absolute on 3 October, Cyril quietly married Ida Smith, Laura’s stepmother and Franks’ widow.
By then, the company was making over 10 million bags of crisps a week. Given the huge range of snack potato-based products available today, it may come as a surprise to realise that all these crisps were simply fried slices of plain potato. Flavoured crisps were introduced around the turn of the 1960s and revolutionised the crisp business.
Smith’s after Frank’s death
The company continued trading but faced increased competition in the 1960s, particularly from Golden Wonder who had 45% of the market share by 1966, as against Smith’s 34 percent. In 1982 Smith’s and rivals Walkers were taken over by Nabisco and in 1989 were sold on to Pepsico, who quietly withdrew the Smith’s products in favour of Walkers. Some were remarketed under the Walkers name and there remain a handful of branded Smith’s potato products still on sale today.
The Smith’s ‘Crunch’ advert from the Swinging 60s is shown here. ‘Just send three empty bags and 1/6d’ to get a record.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwRmBu0oGTo
‘The Secret World of Crisps’, narrated by Dawn French, was shown on Channel 4 at 8pm on Sunday 15 August 2021.
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