Who first decided that salt and vinegar would taste great on chips (fries)?

Surprisingly, the commercial potato chip remained unseasoned until the 1950’s. Salt was supplied in a sealed packet inside the chip bag—not what we would call user-friendly today. Then, Thomas Hutchinson, the owner of a Irish potato chip (or crisp, as they’re known in Great Britain) company called Tayto** pioneered a technology to add seasoning directly to the chip. The world’s first seasoned potato chips were Cheese and Onion and Salt ‘n’ Vinegar.

This innovation caused an overnight sensation in the food industry, with the heads of some of the biggest potato chip companies in the United States bee-lining to the tiny Tayto tater company to examine the product and to negotiate rights to the new technology. When eventually, the Tayto company was sold, it made the owner and the small family group who had changed the face of potato chip manufacture very wealthy. Companies worldwide sought to buy the rights to Tayto's technique.

http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/snacks/chip-history.asp

Perhaps Joe "Spud" Murphy.

The potato chip remained unseasoned until an innovation by Joe "Spud" Murphy (1923 – 2001), the owner of an Irish crisp company called Tayto, who developed a technology to add seasoning in the 1950s. Though he had a small company, consisting almost entirely of his immediate family who prepared the crisps, the owner had long proved himself an innovator. After some trial and error, he produced the world's first seasoned crisps, "Cheese and Onion" and Salt & Vinegar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_chip

I believe the question is in reference to the British "chips" which are a form of potato fry thingies, while the above two posts speak to the potato chip.

No name in particular, however: Although the identity of the first fish and chip shop cannot be confirmed, it was either in London's East End or in the textile factory districts of northern England, and it opened in about 1870, combining two commodities, fish fried in batter and chipped potatoes, which had previously been hawked through the streets as separate entities. It was a cheap and filling dish, enlivened with salt and vinegar, and it began as a latenight snack for revellers on the way home after the pubs had closed.

http://www.answers.com/topic/fish-and-chips

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/05/db02.xml

The British tend to use the term 'French fries' mainly in connection with the little potato sticks served up at McDonalds (apart from some restaurants which are trying unsuccessfully to sound posh). These are not regarded as proper chips but as a separate entity. Oven chips are not regarded as 'proper' chips by many people too, even though they are correctly sized. Chips should be fried.

Thank you. The reason I put 'fries' in brackets was to ensure anyone American wouldn't think I was referring to what we call 'crisps'. But then two people did anyway! Thanks anyway for your research.