Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/107

 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.

Among the battle pictures produced are the following:—Bombardment of Alexandria in 1882, Siege of Gibraltar in 1883, Battle of Trafalgar in 1884; during 1885, two pictures representing the use of the ironclads of the period and based on the Naval manœuvres, entitled the "Attack on Dover,"