“It occurred to me that of all the places of public resort suitable for the inauguration of a new era for pyrotechny, none offered such glorious advantages as the Crystal Palace, then at the height of its popularity. Its terraces, fountains and foliage offered unrivalled advantages for the display of grand effects. The Directors of the Crystal Palace Company, who had more than once been applied to for permission to hold displays in the grounds, feared that, inasmuch as fireworks had been recently associated solely with gardens of the Cremorne class, the Palace itself would be degraded to the same rank if consent were granted. I urged that the Exhibition of 1862 had afforded no opportunity for competition among firework makers—necessarily excluded by the nature of their trade—although almost every other branch of manufactures were embraced, that such a contest might with reason and advantage be held at Sydenham, and that fireworks were really not of an immoral tendency. I further agreed that in the event of the result being unfavourable, either financially or from a social point of view, no second display need take place, but if, as I felt confident, there should be a large attendance of the better classes, then other exhibitions might follow. The Directors, after many months of delay, consented to make the experiment, and the favourable result of the trial on July 12th, 1865, far exceeded my most sanguine expectations. “The result was an unlooked-for success, 20,000 people being present on the occasion. Three more displays took place that year upon a small scale, but always with successful results. “The first display was produced jointly by my father and Mr. Southby, the winner of the first prize, and continued to the end of that season by my father alone under my management. “The success of fireworks at the Crystal Palace having become an accomplished fact, I built extensive works at Nunhead, and commenced manufacturing on a scale never previously dreamt of in the trade—the vast expanse of the locale of my displays obviously necessitating extraordinary expenditure of material. “By degrees the set pieces grew from twelve feet in diameter to 300 feet. Shells for which the Crystal Palace has been renowned grew to one hundred times more than the ordinary shells of my early days, and thousands of pounds weight of material was gradually introduced to increase the effectiveness of these displays.” [Illustration: “The GRAND WHIM for POSTERITY to Laugh at: Being the Night View of the ROYAL FIREWORKS, as Exhibited in the Green Park, St. _James’s_, with the Right Wing on Fire.” Firework Display in the Green Park to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1749.]