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The word “fireworks” as a metaphor, used either to describe the higher flights of oratory, of literature, or of human strife, whether it be in Parliament or the Parish Hall, or merely descriptive of domestic discord, is familiar, even threadbare.

Moreover, the metaphor has generally a humorous flavour; why is this? Is there anything inherently comic about fireworks? It is true that for a short season the less critical of the comic papers used the cracker and squib as pegs upon which to hang the type of joke which depends for its success on the atavistic human trait of laughing at the misfortune or discomfort of others, but this is the lowest type of humour which soon palls upon the mind.

The Stage also has its comedy and clown, yet the mention of the stage is not a signal for mirth. Can any who have heard the long-drawn Ah-h! of rapture from many thousand throats, at the bursting of a flight of shell, or the darting up of the wonderfully tinted rays of the “Magical Illumination” at the Crystal Palace, maintain that the most dramatic moment on the stage is more affecting to the spectators?

Pyrotechny is possibly the only art which can compete with nature; anyone who has seen a first-class firework display will admit that for impressive grandeur, colour effects, and contrasts of light and shade, pyrotechny is unapproached.

Pyrotechny paints on the canvas of the sky; and the results are at once the joy and despair of the artist. Many artists have tried to record their impressions, but the results have been generally disappointing. Whistler came near success, but even his wonderful work conveys merely the dying embers of passed glory. One feels that here has been a magnificent display, but the scene in its full grandeur is not depicted.

One of the few black-and-white artists who can approach the subject with some success is Mr. C. M. Padday, an example of whose work is reproduced in the following pages. His success comes from a careful study of the subject, both technically and from the point of view of composition.

That fireworks are popular there is no doubt; no form of amusement is capable of giving enjoyment to so many people at one time; there is no entertainment which so appeals to youth and age of all classes and tastes. And yet it is doubtful if there is an industry concerning which the public at large is so profoundly ignorant.

To the average onlooker any firework which rises in the air is a rocket, any that revolve are catherine wheels; both of these assumptions are incorrect.

What is the average conception of a firework factory? A building, let us say, in which workmen, with sleeves rolled up, are busily engaged in shovelling heaps of gunpowder. How many know that a firework factory consists of dozens of small buildings, the construction of which is exactly defined by law, separated by spaces also specified by law; that workmen may not roll up their sleeves in the danger buildings; or that the amount of gunpowder in each building is strictly limited to a small quantity? All of these restrictions being enforced with the view, of course, of limiting the effects of any explosion that may occur.

So far as I am aware, no history of the art has yet been written. It is true that during the nineteenth century many text-books on pyrotechny were written, but the historical side of the subject has been generally represented by a few disjointed remarks in the prefaces.

My object has not been to write a text-book on firework-making, but rather to trace the art from earliest times, and to give a description of the development and process of manufacture. For those interested in the subject, and desiring fuller information, the list of MSS. and books given in the Bibliography at the end of this volume may be found useful.

My excuse for adding another volume to the literature of the art is that I am of the eighth generation of a family of pyrotechnists, whose work, I venture to claim, has not been without its effect. If I succeed in interesting, and in some degree enlightening, my readers, I shall feel I have not written in vain; if I fail, I shall know it is not in my choice of subject but in my capacity for dealing with it.

A. St. H. BROCK.

Sutton,

August, 1922.

ERRATA

Page 117 line 13 for “filled” read “fitted”

„ 133 „ 8 „ “and” „ “at”

„ 153, 154 for “Hume” read “Hime”