Firework displays were looked upon as a necessary item in the programme of a place of public entertainment. So ambitious did these displays become, owing to keen rivalry existing between the various resorts, that any official display in celebration of peace or like event must of necessity be on a scale of unexampled lavishness. No official display of note appears to have been given in London during the first thirteen years of the nineteenth century, or indeed since the Aix-la-Chapelle peace display. The reason may have been the public outcry on the score of waste on that occasion. They were totally prohibited at the coronation of George III, and at his jubilee in 1809 there were apparently no firework displays in London, although more than forty towns about the country celebrated the event pyrotechnically, and a fine display was given from the Fleet at the Nore. The largest public firework exhibition on this occasion was that given at Bombay, where the celebration took place earlier in the year, the date selected being June 4th, the King’s birthday, instead of October 25th, the actual anniversary of his accession. The Peace of 1802, although no official display was given, was the occasion of much private pyrotechnic enterprise, the fireworks and illuminations in London lasting nearly a week. The Peace of 1814 was signalised in London by several displays: the 1st of August was chosen for the Peace Celebration, it being the centenary of the accession of the House of Brunswick, and also the anniversary of the Battle of the Nile. The display in Hyde Park commenced with a naval engagement on the Serpentine between model warships representing the English and the combined French and American Fleets. This item, which lasted three hours, was followed by a display of water fireworks. The display in Green Park commenced at ten o’clock, one of the chief items being the “grand metamorphosis of the Castle into the Temple of Concord.” This change, says a writer in “The Times” of the period, “was made with somewhat less celerity than those witnessed in our theatrical pantomimes. It resembled rather the cautious removal of a screen than the sudden leap into a new shape. When fully developed, however, it presented a spectacle which excited general approbation.” The Temple of Concord was an elaborate structure illuminated with coloured lamps, and decorated with gilding, festoons, etc., and transparent paintings. It was designed by Smirke, the paintings being by Stodard, Howard, Hilton, and others, and represented such subjects as “The Golden Age,” and “Peace restored to Earth.”