Casting Forth Wild Fire

The sheer scale of the celebrations is mind-boggling. The central display boasted a brilliant wheel 30 feet in diameter turned by 12 fires. An estimated 10,650 rockets were ordered, and although the display continued “til midnight, there were still hundreds of unused fireworks left over. These were bought by the Duke of Richmond and taken to his town house on the Thames, where a display was given to universal acclaim in honor of the visiting Duke of Modena.

Public and press reactions to the Royal display were mixed, one contemporary pamphlet calling it The Grand Whim For Posterity To Laugh At, and many complaining about the cost. Eventually an official statement was issued claiming “… bills delivered to His Majesty”s Board of Works amount to no more than £14,500″. A fair-sized bill in 1749, and it was several years before London saw a display on such a scale.

The traditional Hallowmas fires celebrating All Hallows’ Eve were transferred to Guy Fawkes Day on 5th November after the attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605. It was said that the bonfire in Lincoln’s Inn Fields consumed 200 cartloads of fuel, while around 30 Guys hung on gibbets above the inferno. Effigies of Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster were burnt during the Papal Aggression of 1850, and over the years the Emperor of Russia in 1855 and Kaiser Wilhelm have supplanted Guy on the fire.

Today sees a return to large-scale public pyrotechnic displays, but without the hazards of earlier centuries, when the display amounted almost to open warfare with pieces of ordnance and the presence of Master-gunners. We have necessarily sacrificed spectacle for safety, and perhaps the “Hollywood Blockbuster” of past centuries was created live before your very eyes in public parks across Europe by masters of ordnance who “cast forth wild fire” across open spaces for the entertainment of the masses.