Fireworks night – a guide for the uninitiated

Remember, remember
The fifth of November
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
I see no reason
Why Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot

Traditional English folk rhyme

The Chinese invented the first primitive fireworks over 2000 years ago while burning bamboo shoots as part of the ongoing search for the elusive secret to immortality that preoccupied many Chinese scholars of that era but it was only from around 1600 that gunpowder technology, developed for canon, firearms and other artillery, was developed to create the first coloured fireworks by the deliberate introduction of metals that burned with a brightly coloured flame. It was about this time that a Catholic plot to blow up the English Parliament together with the reigning Protestant King James I was thwarted, largely because the conspirators were spied openly plotting in coffee houses and then shipping large quantities of barrels rather conspicuously across the Thames to be stored in a subterranean warehouse sited next to the Houses of Parliament. Closer inspection of these barrels by the security services revealed they were packed with gunpowder. The conspiracy was all sewn up long before the intended detonation at the opening of parliament but the security forces waited until they were able to catch the conspirators in the act before arresting them.

Guido (“Guy”) Fawkes has always been presented as the ringleader of this band of traitors and it has been his effigy that has traditionally been burned atop bonfires across England as a warning to others every 5 November, on the anniversary of the foiled regicide. In a feat of conspicuous irony, it was decided to celebrate the capture of those who tried to use gunpowder to blow up the king and parliament with a show of gunpowder fireworks and the tradition has continued ever since.

If you want to know more, English Heritage has published a potted history of the Gunpowder Plot.