Pyrotechnics: The History and Art of Firework Making

by Alan St. H. Brock

As has been previously mentioned, Jones complains that when it was required to carry out a display of fireworks on a large scale, recourse was always had to foreigners to conduct it. One reason was that, apart from the actual making of the firework units, a display depends far more for its success on the experience and skill of the pyrotechnist in arranging and composing both the form and sequence of the pieces. The firework makers capable of carrying out a display on a large scale were very few; there were fewer, if any, in this country. The whole of the trade was illegal; under the statute of the 9th and 10th of William III it was illegal to make, sell, or let off fireworks:

“By the 9th and 10th of William, Chap. 7, it is enacted: That if any Person shall make or cause to be made, or sell, give, or utter, or offer, or expose to sale any Squibs, Rockets, Serpents, or other Fire-works, he shall forfeit Five Pounds. And that if any Person shall permit the same to be fired from his House or Premises, or shall cast or fire, or be aiding and assisting in casting or firing the same in any public Street, House, Shop, River, or Highway, he shall forfeit Twenty Shillings, or be committed to the House of Correction to hard Labour for one Month.”

This Act continued in force up to the passing of the Gunpowder Act in 1860. There were periods during which it was practically a dead letter, and again periods of sporadic activity.

The first restriction of the public use of fireworks appears to have been an order in council dated November 6th, 1685, which “For the preventing of Tumultuas Disorders” and with the object of “Disappointing the Evil Designs of Persons Disaffected to the Government, who commonly make use of such occasions to turn those Meetings into Riots and Tumults,” enacted that “No Person or Persons whatsoever, do presume to make or encourage the making of any Bonfires, or other Publick Fire Works—without particular permission Leave in Order—upon Pain of His Majesty’s Displeasure; and being Prosecuted with the utmost severity of the Law.”

A notice appeared in the press of November 1st, 1788, dated from the “Public Office, Bow Street,” warning the public against firing crackers in the street, and quoting the Act “that no Person may claim Ignorance thereof.” Again, in 1814, “The Times” has an account of a summons under the Act of a William Swift, “for exposing for sale, Squibs, Serpents, Crackers and Fireworks of other descriptions to the great danger and annoyance of the public and contrary to the Statute.” The report continues:

“Mr. Laws in opening the case observed, that this was a prosecution brought forward at the recommendation of the Magistrates of Union-Hall, who, however, did not by it seek to punish the defendant with severity but only to inform him and others acting like him, that the Act upon which the present indictment was founded and which so far back as the reign of William III, was passed for the protection of the public, though it had not lately been acted upon, was still in force. The defendant, it appeared, was a man of property and a respectable holder residing in Falcon-Court, where he had for some time past carried on the profession of a firework-maker. The officers of Union-Hall having heard, however, that he was in the habit of supplying boys or any person who applied indiscriminately with these dangerous commodities, they determined, if possible, to put a stop to this traffic, so dangerous to the public safety. For this purpose they sent a person, properly instructed, to purchase some; Goff, Bruce, and some other of the officers remaining near the door to detect him coming out; the purchase was made, and as the purchaser was quitting the house, the officers stopt him and forced their way in. They proceeded to search the premises, and concealed in closets and other parts, they discovered a vast quantity of fireworks of various sizes and descriptions, amounting to 19,600 and weighing upwards of 6 cwt., several of these, singly, were large enough to have spread ruin through the neighbourhood, had they by accident exploded. These the officers took away and deposited at the Office, where they still remained to the great annoyance of the Magistrates waiting the decision of this question.”

Hone, in his “Everyday Book,” records that at that time, 1825, “A Corporation notice was annually left at the house of every inhabitant in the City of London, previous to lord mayor’s day.” The following (delivered in St. Bride’s) is its form:

“October the 11th, 1825.

Sir:

By Virtue of a Precept from my Lord Mayor, in order to prevent any Tumults and Riots that may happen on the Fifth of November, and the next ensuing Lord Mayor’s Day, you are required to charge all your Servants and Lodgers, that they neither make, nor cause to be made, any Squibs, Serpents, Fire Balloons, or other Fireworks, nor fire, fling, nor throw them out of your House, Shop or Warehouse, or in the Streets of this City, on the Penalties contained in an Act of Parliament made in the Tenth year of the late King William.

Note. The Act was made perpetual, and is not expired, as some ignorantly suppose.

C. Puckeridge, Beadle.

Taylor, Printer, Basinghall Street.”

During the period of the operation of the Act, that is from the end of the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth centuries, on the occasion of public rejoicing, the authorities were in the anomalous position of employing persons to break the law, both by manufacturing and displaying fireworks.

Although, as we have seen, this Act had very little effect on the quantity of fireworks manufactured, it had considerable adverse effect on the industry. As the whole thing was illegal, no regulations were framed to control the making, storage, or distribution of fireworks, or the safety of either workers or public. The manufacture was conducted on lines which, at the present time, appear inconceivably reckless. Several people working in one room in a crowded building, with loose composition and gunpowder, and a fire in an open grate round which finished or partially finished goods were put to dry, and this in a thickly populated area of London.