# Why are Jelly Babies called Jelly Babies?

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## Summary

Jelly Babies are named after their shape: plump little babies made of soft jelly. The name was in use by 1885, and Bassett's adopted it for good in 1953.

## Description

Jelly Babies are named for exactly what they are: soft sweets made of sugar jelly, in the shape of plump little babies. But the name took a while to settle.
Jelly, and babies
A Jelly Baby is a soft sugar jelly sweet, sold in a variety of colours, shaped like a plump baby. Like most gummy and jelly sweets, it gets its texture from gelatine, which sets into a soft gel. Put the texture and the shape together and you have the name.
Unclaimed Babies and Peace Babies
The sweets were invented in 1864 by an Austrian immigrant working at Fryer's, a Lancashire sweet maker, and were first sold as Unclaimed Babies. Their popularity faded, until Bassett's of Sheffield revived them. By 1918 Bassett's was making them as Peace Babies, to mark the end of the First World War.
The name Jelly Babies
The name itself is older than Bassett's version. In 1885 the Riches Confectionery Company of Duke Street, London Bridge, advertised Jelly Babies, along with other baby sweets called Tiny Totties and Sloper's Babies. At a farthing each they were probably much bigger than today's.
Bassett's stopped making its babies during the Second World War because of shortages, and when they returned in 1953 they were relaunched as Jelly Babies. That is the name that stuck. See what were Jelly Babies originally called?
Babies with names
The babies even have names of their own. Since about 1989 each colour of Bassett's Jelly Babies has had its own name, shape and flavour, from Brilliant, the red strawberry one, to Bigheart, the purple blackcurrant one: see do Jelly Babies have names?
A name that caught on
The name became so familiar that it was borrowed elsewhere. Terry Pratchett named a country in his Discworld books Djelibeybi, a pun on jelly baby, and a sweet called Jellyatrics was launched in 1999 to celebrate what its makers called the Jelly Baby's 80th birthday.
We sell Jelly Babies in our pick and mix.

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