Pyrotechnics: The History and Art of Firework MakingBrock, Alan St. H. (Alan St. Hill)
History
Pyrotechnics: The History and Art of Firework Making
Brock, Alan St. H. (Alan St. Hill)
Fireworks
The Crystal Palace displays carried out by C. T. Brock and his
brother, Arthur Brock, who succeeded him in the business on March 25th,
1881, have since become proverbial. They continued up to 1910, when
the Crystal Palace was taken over by the promoters of the Pageant of
Empire. They have been revived in 1920, when the War Museum was opened,
and the attendance has proved that the public taste for fireworks is
very far from diminishing.
During the run of forty-five consecutive years an installation was
built up, method and technique were evolved unknown in any other place
of pyrotechnic exhibition.
While the firework terrace, with its magnificent background of park
and shrubberies, is unrivalled as a firing ground, it is at the same
time the most exacting. The huge building, its imposing position and
setting, the wonderful fountains, all demand pyrotechnic effects on a
corresponding scale.
The pictorial set pieces, originally introduced by C. T. Brock in 1875,
increased in size until a plant was arrived at capable of exhibiting a
picture ninety feet high and two hundred feet long on the main girder,
which length could be extended to even six hundred feet of frontage, as
on the occasion of the exhibition of a battle piece or similar subject.
During this period the subjects dealt with in the main set pieces have
covered a wide range. A favourite subject, and one lending itself
particularly well to pyrotechnic production, is the sea battle. Almost
every historic naval engagement of sufficient size to warrant its
adoption has been proved the subject for a fire picture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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