Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/119

 ever fired—the official Peace display in Hyde Park in 1919, in which some of the ground works suffered from the rain which, unfortunately, started about five o'clock, but the aerial work was on an unprecedented scale, shells varying from sixteen inches down to 5-1/2 inches in diameter being fired in salvoes of twenty-five to one hundred.

Rockets of 1 lb. were fired in flights of one hundred, and a final flight of three thousand; sets of Roman candles, each containing two hundred; one hundred fiery jets, etc., etc. The "Fourth of June" celebration at Eton has always been the occasion of a firework display, and displays have taken place annually, with the exception of the years of the Great War, from at least as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Hone, in his "Everyday Book" (1831), speaks of the fireworks as a well-established feature of the festival.

It is possible, and even probable, that they date from the reign of George III, on whose birthday the event takes place.