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This page intentionally left blank
a biography Roger Horrocks

Auckland
University Press
 to Shirley
for help & inspiration

First published 2001

Reprinted 2002

Auckland University Press

University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland
New Zealand
http://www.auckland.ac.nz/aup

© Roger Horrocks, 2001

isbn 1 86940 247 2

Publication is assisted by

This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of
private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the
Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without
prior permission of the publisher.

Cover design by Sarah Maxey

Front cover photograph: Len Lye in Sydney, c.1925,
photographed by Mary Brown. Courtesy Len Lye Foundation.
Back cover: Strips of direct film from Colour Cry (1953).
Courtesy Len Lye Foundation.

Printed by Spectrum Print, Christchurch

contents

Introduction 1

part one sense games

(New Zealand, Australia, Samoa)
1 The Flash 7
2 Cape Campbell 12
3 The First Sketchbook 17
4 Composing Motion 23
5 Modernism 30
6 Hei-Tiki 38
7 Sydney 45
8 Kinetic Theatre 52
9 Samoa 57
10 Deportation 63
11 Jack Ellitt 68

part two ‘individual happiness now’

(England)
12 Stoker Sculptor 79
13 Batiks 85
14 Tusalava 90
 15 Jane Thompson 96
16 The Seven and Five Society 101
17 Robert Graves and Laura Riding 107
18 Mallorca 114
19 A Wedding 121
20 Peanut Vendor 127
21 A Colour Box 133
22 The Birth of the Robot 142
23 Rainbow Dance 148
24 Public and Private 153
25 Surrealism 159
26 The English Walt Disney 163
27 The World and Ourselves 171
28 Individual Happiness Now 175
29 Going to the Top 184
30 War Films 189
31 Kill or Be Killed 198

part three ‘free radical’

(USA, New Zealand)
32 Willkie 211
33 A Rorschach Test 217
34 Ann Hindle 223
35 Paintings and Poems 230
36 Shoe of My Mind 238
 37 Gracious Living with Little Money 245
38 Madison Avenue 253
39 Rhythm 258
40 Free Radicals 263
41 Going on Strike 268
42 Tangibles 273
43 Dance of the Machines 280
44 Sartorial Thrift-Shop Style 291
45 The Movement Movement 300
46 A Flip and Two Twisters 305
47 Life in the Sixties 315
48 The Snake God 324
49 Genetics 330
50 The Absolute Truth of the Happiness Acid 337
51 Utopias 348
52 Homes 352
53 New Plymouth 360
54 Relationships 367
55 Direct Film Apprentices 371
56 Quitting the Lot 376

Epilogue 381
Acknowledgements 389
Notes 397
Index 430
This page intentionally left blank
introduction

Len Lye stood out even within the colourful worlds of art and film for his
singularity. In the words of painter Julian Trevelyan, ‘He was like a man from
Mars who saw everything from a different viewpoint, and it was this that made
him original.’1 Lye’s exuberance, his unique taste in clothes, his quirky turn of
phrase, and his free-wheeling life style made him a legendary figure among
fellow artists and film-makers. These were outward signs of the deep and
uncompromising commitment to experiment and risk-taking in the arts that
sustained him for more than 60 years as he applied his innovative approach to
film, sculpture, painting, photography and writing.
Lye was a member of many important art groups, starting with the Seven
and Five Society in London in the 1920s and the international Surrealist
movement in the 1930s. In the same decade he was part of John Grierson’s GPO
Film Unit, and contributed as a writer and artist to notable avant-garde
magazines and publishing ventures. Moving to New York he became involved
with the Abstract Expressionist painters and the underground film-makers of
the 1950s. In the following decade he played an important role in the
international upsurge in kinetic art. He was never tempted to slow down and
just a few months before his death at the age of 78 he completed a remarkable
series of paintings and one of his most radical films.
As the first account to bring together the many facets of Lye’s eventful and
singular life, this biography suggests that his personality was as remarkable as
his art. Ann Lye (his wife) once said, ‘Len’s greatest creation was himself’, and
the poet Alastair Reid felt similarly that ‘his day to day life was some of his best
work’, making him ‘the least boring person who ever existed’. As I researched
the biography I found that the mention of Lye’s name almost always produced a
warm welcome and a rush of anecdotes about (in the words of sculptor Kenneth
Snelson) ‘this crazy, excited and exciting guy’.2 Photographer Barbara Ker-
Seymer spoke for many of his friends when she warned me it was an impossible
challenge to capture such a personality on paper.
I was also drawn to attempt the biography by the unusual breadth of Lye’s
journey through twentieth century art. He was one of the rare examples of an
experimental artist able to appeal not only to artists and critics but also to a broad

9
10 len lye
public. Today his films are still screened regularly on MTV Europe and at rock
concerts. His kinetic sculptures have attracted record crowds in a way that is
rare for abstract art, and while viewers may not feel they understand his work
they are fascinated and stirred by it. Lye’s art has often been surrounded by
controversy — from the noisy mixture of cheering and booing that greeted his
first direct films to the debates today about the setting-up of his giant sculptures
in public places. Such polarised responses have at times helped to make the artist
prominent in popular culture as well as high culture.
This biography differs markedly from previous accounts of his life because
they have tended to rely on a few sources. Though reticent as a young man, Lye
became a lively interview subject in his later years and most critics and curators
were happy to use his colourful anecdotes without bothering to seek independent
confirmation. It’s not that the artist was trying to deceive anyone but that his
mind worked in a particular, creative way — he liked dramatic stories, he
disliked boring details, he turned memories into myths. His anecdotes conveyed
the spirit and mood of his experiences but streamlined the facts. Many artists
have indulged in personal myth-making but Lye was an extreme case,
particularly in his later years. When asked to date an event or painting he would
offer an answer that was as confident as it was unreliable.3 It is sobering to
observe how many essays and catalogues have continued to recycle the same
answers as facts.
The present biography is the result of research spread over two decades in
search of independent sources and reliable evidence. I should add that the artist
gave his own blessing to my project and encouraged frankness (he was never
comfortable with an ‘overload of lauding’).4 As my research developed I was
pleased to find that what I uncovered — the details he had forgotten or trans-
formed — were just as interesting in their own way as his streamlined memories.
In the late 1970s and through the 1980s I was fortunate to be able to interview
many members of Lye’s generation who have since died — including the artist
himself, his brother Philip, his first wife Jane and second wife Ann, friends who
had grown up with him in New Zealand, and artists and technicians who had
worked with him in England. Jack Ellitt, now (in 2000) living in Australia at the
age of 97, is one of the few surviving colleagues from those early years.
I would describe the method I have adopted as similar to a documentary film,
in particular an ‘over the shoulder’ approach that sticks as close as possible to its
subject. I have often used Lye’s own words complemented by interviews with
the people who were round him. I have tried to keep my own commentary to a
minimum but have not hesitated to add contextual information where it was
 introduction 11
needed. In seeking the immediacy of an observational documentary I have
allowed first-hand accounts to carry much of the narrative. Direct quotations
tend to interest me more than paraphrase because of what they reveal about
personalities, contexts, and contemporary discourses. Together with the oral
history I gathered through interviews, I was fortunate to have at my disposal a
rich archive of Lye’s own writings in which he put on record the personal flavour
and meaning of many of his experiences, often as a case study to illustrate his
theories of the ‘old brain’. It took me years to find my way round this chaotic
collection of fragments and drafts but ultimately it proved a goldmine. My ‘new
brain’ biography (with its independent sorting of facts) provided a structure that
could carry the texture of the artist’s ‘old brain’ descriptions.
I was pleased when a reader said the book felt at times more like an auto-
biography than a biography. Some readers may, however, be disappointed that I
have not done more of the work for them by supplying more generalisations and
judgements. Certainly I have formed a number of opinions but I am keeping
most of that material for a later, more technical book. I decided that writing an
accessible biography was the first priority because of the breadth of interest in
Lye (not only among specialists) and the fact that discussions of the man and his
career have almost always been fragmentary and under-researched. My task was
to fill in the gaps (or as many as possible) and to present his personality in a way
that was more rounded, more coherent, and more immediate.
To stress a documentary approach is of course not to pretend that the results
are purely objective. Any account that has had to be assembled from thousands
of small pieces of information necessarily involves numerous acts of
interpretation. While pointing towards my own conclusions, I have nevertheless
tried to maintain a certain openness by providing readers with enough data to
allow them to make their own judgements. Such an openness seemed to me
appropriate for a book premised on the belief that our traditional ways of
thinking about modern art have not done justice to the complexity of the field
nor been fully able to accommodate a maverick such as Lye.
Part One of the biography covers the artist’s early development in New
Zealand, Australia, and Samoa. Part Two looks at the blossoming of his art in
England, where he made a number of important films and paintings. Part Three
(which is chronologically the longest) surveys his career in the United States
where he made kinetic sculptures as well as films, before re-establishing his links
with New Zealand in the final years of his life. Lye’s critics have tended to work
within traditional frames of reference by focusing on one medium or one
country at a time, thus providing us (for example) with a New Zealand Lye, a
12 len lye
British Lye, and an American Lye. While that approach has yielded valuable
insights, it is only by tracking all the phases that it becomes possible to
understand the lifetime coherence of his interests and to appreciate his disregard
for boundaries.
The account of Lye’s early years holds a special resonance for me — and
perhaps also for other New Zealanders — in documenting the emergence of one
of the country’s first modern artists. I hope overseas readers will also find it
interesting as the story of someone from the working class in a small, colonial
country who, in the course of educating himself, becomes so passionately
involved with modernism that he ends up a member of the international avant-
garde. I would also suggest that a knowledge of his New Zealand origins is
necessary to an understanding of the sources of his art and some aspects of his
personality. Not that this was a simple matter of nationalism, for Lye created his
art as much in rebellion against his environment as in sympathy with it.
My search for visual evidence turned up a profusion of photographs, enabling
his daily life to be observed through the eyes of friends, lovers, and fellow artists.
It also seemed important to present a broad range of his art, in so far as an art of
motion can be illustrated on the page. Strips of film, blurred shots of sculpture in
motion, and sequential photographs can be more informative than static images.

Bringing together the many sides of Lye’s career has left me in no doubt that —
in addition to providing us with new insights into the history of modernism —
he is still an important artist for today. He developed a distinctive physical or
kinaesthetic way of understanding movement that is yet to be fully grasped by
critics or fully exploited by artists. He also arrived at an original conception of the
unconscious mind, its links with the body and with the process of making art. It
has at last become technically possible to realise some of the plans he left behind
for giant kinetic sculptures. His films continue to delight audiences and influence
animators, and in a medium too often ruled by commercialism and conservatism
he provides an alternative role model — that of the passionate artist and
innovator. To quote a comment made in 1997 by another risk-taking director,
Peter Greenaway: ‘Len Lye was a perfect example of trying very, very
deliberately to put the perfect characteristics of the projective image into new
places. [We need] a brand new cinema which will fit the imaginations of the next
century.’5
part one sense games
This page intentionally left blank
one the flash

Len Lye’s first clear memories belonged to the weeks that followed his third
birthday. His father Harry was sick and the family had come to stay at West
Eyreton with Aunt Emma and Uncle Charles. At night the boy was jolted
awake by the sound of his father coughing and the other adults bustling about,
their voices urgent. When he got up to see what was happening they shooed him
out of the room, but he knew some terrible change was coming over his father
who lay in bed sweating and gaunt. During the day he would hear the adults
lower their voices when they thought he was listening. His mother Rose would
give him a cuddle, together with his baby brother, but she was evasive when he
asked her why she was crying.
One day being kept from seeing his father he flew into a tantrum, shouting
and kicking, giving himself over completely to his rage. The adults were
horrified — the house must be kept quiet, Harry had to rest — and so his uncle
bustled the boy out through the back door into the yard. It was a winter after-
noon but the sun burned brightly. Left to seethe in the asphalt area under the
clothes line, the boy spotted a kerosene can, large and inviting. He ran over and
with every ounce of power in his wiry legs began kicking it. The effect was
vastly more dramatic than he had imagined: ‘I kicked that can around to make
the most god-awful racket my lungs and kicks on the can could. I can still feel
the impact of my kicks on that can and hear an echo of tinny clashes. But what is
most clear is a great flash of quivering sunlight that came from the can. I stood
stock still. I don’t know what I did next. I think I went over and sat on a log and
looked at the can. We’re all stopped short by wonder some time, and that’s when
it first stopped me in my tracks.’1
The ‘great flash’ was soon followed by another mystery as the adults brought
him news that his father had died. ‘I couldn’t figure out where he had gone.
How could someone living and moving simply vanish?’2 Destitute, Rose and her
children now faced their own struggle to survive. But in later years Len Lye
could never think back to the shock of his father’s death without also
remembering the excitement of the flash — as though the three-year-old had
touched an electric current, had discovered he could summon up his own
thunder and lightning. Eventually he would make a career out of shaping this
15
16 len lye
energy, producing highly original films and mechanised steel sculptures that
combined powerful effects of light and sound. Today, the flash and reverberation
of his most dramatic kinetic sculptures, both outdoors and in galleries, continue
to make a terrifying impression on the children who experience them.
His earliest memories came from 1904, a year when a few modernists in
Europe were laying the foundations for the kind of art to which he would later
devote his life. Eventually he would join those artists and exhibit his work along-
side theirs. But in 1904 such developments were associated with the underground
cultures of the largest cities of Europe, whereas Lye was born in New Zealand, a
country so small and remote that it would be hard to imagine a less propitious
starting-point at that time for an avant-garde artist. This tension between living
in the South Pacific and tuning in to radical ideas from distant centres of art
would help him to develop his own unique version of modernism.
New Zealand was in European terms a young country and a raw colony. If
the country was known at all overseas it was not for its culture but for its nature,
for its landscapes. It was fitting that Lye’s flash — which he later interpreted as
his first experience of art — should have happened outdoors in bright sunlight.
Not that New Zealand had escaped civilisation — indeed, it prided itself on its
close links with Britain, though this meant in practice that much of its culture
had a hand-me-down awkwardness, being a little old-fashioned and not always
a good fit for the new environment. To grow up in this culture was to feel as
though one saw the world from the margins, from a cheap seat at the back — yet
this outsider perspective also provided the potential (which our artist would one
day use to the full) to see the world differently, lit by flashes of new meaning.
But not all of New Zealand’s cultural life was European and off-centre, for the
indigenous inhabitants, the Maori, had been living here for a thousand years.
They were the tangata whenua, the people of the land, with their own language
and traditions of art. At the beginning of the century their population had
shrunk to 43,000 and the white settlers who had come to occupy most of their
land believed mistakenly that the race was dying out and that their culture
would only survive as a tourist attraction. Maori culture would become
profoundly important for Lye as he struggled to extricate himself from Victorian
ways of thinking. In Europe since the early 1900s the modernists had turned in
their search for new directions to the study of African art. Lye’s involvement
with Polynesian cultures would come from a similar impulse though the results
would be different.
These were a few of the contexts into which Leonard Charles Huia Lye was
born on 5 July 1901. ‘Huia’ was a Maori name, an unusual choice in those days
 the flash 17
for a child who was Pakeha (or non-Maori). Rose, his Irish mother, said she had
taken the name from a warrior chief who had ‘given the colonising English
army one hell of a rotten tactical time’.3 Later Lye would speculate that his own
rebel streak was inherited from his mother, who was ‘not so much anti-English
as fiercely pro-Irish’4 — indeed, ‘more sentimental about the old sod than many
a shamrock fancier living on it’.5 Lye felt green coursing through his veins and
grew up on ‘gory tales of derring-do in Ireland’.6 Rose’s parents had both
emigrated to New Zealand from Ireland — Elizabeth Martin from Cork and
John Cole (a baker) from Dublin — before meeting and marrying in Wellington.
Rose’s future husband Harry had also been born in New Zealand but he had
grown up in a very different world because his family was English and Anglican,
not Irish and Catholic. His father Arthur, a tailor and bootmaker, and his
mother Amelia had emigrated to New Zealand from Surrey, England, in 1859.
British immigrants, Protestant and Catholic, had brought their old conflicts to
the new colony.7 Protestants feared that the Catholic Church in New Zealand
was conspiring to seize political power. And Catholic priests warned Rose that
her proposed marriage to a boy from a Protestant family would not be recognised
by the Church as legitimate.
Lye thought of his parents as a union of opposites — Rose was romantic and
superstitious while Harry represented the more practical ‘English side’. She was
a warm-hearted, good-looking woman with a fine singing voice. He was tall and
slim and a good talker with an appetite for argument. Prematurely bald, he
worked as a hairdresser. The tobacco and barber shop at 196 Colombo Street,
Christchurch, which he shared with Joseph Eslick, became ‘a theological and
political hot-bed of conversation’ as Harry ‘culled the locks of priests and vicars
and draymen’.8 Though the romance between Harry and Rose was vigorously
opposed by both their churches, the determined couple got married on 19 July
1900 at Lyttelton. For years the priests continued (in her son’s phrase) ‘to give
Rose hell’. Although she never lost her Catholic faith, her tribulations would
fuel her son’s hatred of orthodoxy.
Rose and Harry set up home at 272 Manchester Street in Christchurch. In the
distance were pasture lands bounded by the snow-capped Southern Alps. With
a total population of around 60,000, Christchurch was the second largest city in
New Zealand.9 It was as English as it could be, with its own river Avon, its
Church of England cathedral, and its cricket fields. The main public event in
1901, the year of Lye’s birth, was the death of Queen Victoria.10 The continuity
of the royal line was emphasised a few months later by the visit to New Zealand
of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (the future King George V and
18 len lye
Queen Mary), who came to acknowledge the settlers’ success in conquering the
wilderness and creating a prosperous agricultural outpost of the British Empire.
In 1903 the Lyes had a second son, Philip John,11 but by then Harry was suffering
from an advanced case of tuberculosis of the lungs. The disease was widespread
in New Zealand and there were no drugs to treat it. The best hope of recovery
was to seek rest, fresh air, and good food, but tuberculosis thrived on poverty
since hard-pressed families such as the Lyes could not afford such treatment. By
1904 Harry was unable to work and he and Rose could no longer afford to rent
their house. They were rescued by Harry’s sister Emma and her husband
Charles Bourke, the headmaster of a school at West Eyreton, about 20 kilometres
from the city. Emma looked after Harry and the children while Rose searched
for paid work. It was this period that left their son with his two mysteriously
linked memories, the flash of sunlight and his father’s death. Years later Lye
spoke cryptically of the sun as a ‘symbol for energy, for patriarch, for light, for
life over death, at the time a three-year-old’s father lay haemorrhaging to
death’.12 He speculated about whether his later impulse to become an artist was
his way of filling in ‘the vacuum of who the hell was my father’.13 Eventually he
even came to see growing up without a father as having a positive aspect because
it left him to establish his roots ‘in nature rather than in a patriarch’.14 But at the
time it happened, Harry’s death was a disaster for the whole family. His wife
had immediately to find a job because the state gave no financial assistance to
widows. The only jobs available to her were housekeeping and cleaning, and
most employers did not want small children around. Forced to board out her
sons, Rose placed them as often as she could with relatives. She lost touch with
her husband’s family, but over the next few years she sent her children to stay
with three of her own sisters and one of her brothers. The boys hated being
separated but sometimes had to be boarded with different families. Rose
retrieved her sons whenever she could and their reunions were times of great
happiness. The boys had few possessions and their childhood was full of
upheavals but they never had any doubt that their mother loved them — it was
the one continuity they had in a confused flux of houses, families, and guardians.
Rose Lye was a resilient woman and a devoted mother. As a so-called ‘char-
lady’ she worked long hours, was poorly paid, and was treated with condescen-
sion. In those days society made few efforts to understand or to ease the role of
the solo mother. Her younger son later said of her: ‘Rose was a marvellous
person. People’s attitudes were very narrow and Victorian but she was broad-
minded, and probably a lot of that was due to her own experience, having to
battle for herself and her two kids.’15 She set firm ground rules for her children,
 the flash 19
but her older son would later describe her affectionately as his ‘self-raising
flower’ who had given him the best kind of unselfish love. She understood and
valued the fact that he was as strong-minded and argumentative as his father had
been, and he was always profoundly grateful for that tolerance: ‘She let me come
to my own divinings of what was what, even though she then had to accept my
wildest conclusions.’16
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lies in the most compact form possible, and close to the horse’s side,
while the Rockets, being thus separated, cannot be injured by
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The load is divided into three parts, the case or bundle of
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hook on to the saddle, carrying nine Rockets in each bag. By this
means there is no difficulty in loading and unloading the horse.
The whole weight thus carried by an Ammunition Horse is about
19 stone, consisting of about 6½ stone for the saddle, sticks, &c.
and almost six stone in each of the saddle bags. From which it is
evident, that there is no fear of the load swagging the horse in
travelling, because the centre of gravity is very considerably below
his back bone. It is evident also, that as the weight of the Rockets
diminishes by supplying the mounted men, the weight of the sticks
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brought lower and lower, as the load diminishes, by taking the
ammunition from the upper tiers gradually and equally on each side
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other circumstances, render it advisable to carry a less load.
The mode of leading these horses will be explained in the next
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Plate 2
 ROCKET CAVALRY IN LINE OF
MARCH, AND IN ACTION.
Plate 3, Fig. 1, represents a sub-division of Rocket Cavalry, or
Rocket Horse Artillery, marching in column of threes. It consists of
six sections, of three men in each, or a less number of sections,
according to the whole strength of the troop, followed by four
ammunition horses, each pair led by a driver riding between them;
on the full scale, therefore, a sub-division will consist of 24 horses
and 20 men, and will carry into action 152 rounds of 12-pounder
Shell or Case Shot Rockets, and six bouches a feù or chambers,
carried by the centre men of each section.
Fig. 2 represents this division in action, where the division may
be supposed to have been halted in line, on the words—“Prepare for
action in front—dismount”—Nos. 1 and 3 having dismounted, and
given their leading reins to No. 2, who remains mounted, No. 1 runs
forward about 15 or 20 paces with the chamber, which he draws
from the leather case at the back of No. 2’s valise; and while Nos. 2
and 3 are preparing a Rocket, drawn from any one of the holsters
most convenient, No. 1 fixes the chamber into the ground, pointing
it to the desired object, and lights his portfire ready for the first
round, which No. 3 by this time will have brought to him, and laid
into the chamber; there remains, then, only for No. 1 to touch the
vent of the Rocket with his portfire, No. 3 having run back for
another round, which No. 2 will have been able to prepare in the
mean time. In this way the sub-division will, without hurry, come
into action with six bouches a feù, in one minute’s time, and may
continue their fire, without any extraordinary exertion, at the rate of
from two to three rounds from each chamber in a minute, or even
four with good exertion; so that the six bouches a feù would
discharge 80 rounds of 6-pounder ammunition in three minutes.
Twelve light frames for firing the 12-pounder Rockets at high angles
are further provided in addition to the ground chambers, and each of
the drivers of the ammunition horses has one in his charge, in case
of distant action.
The preparation of the Rocket for firing is merely the fixing the
stick to it, either by the pincers, pointed hammer, or wrench,
provided for joining the parts of the stick also. These modes I have
lately devised, as being more simple and economical than the screw
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great care, however, must be taken to fix the stick securely, as every
thing depends on it; the vent also must be very carefully uncovered,
as, if not perfectly so, the Rocket is liable to burst; and in firing the
portfire must not be thrust too far into the Rocket, for the same
reason.
On the words “Cease firing,” No. 1 cuts his portfire, takes up his
chamber, runs back to his section, and replaces the chamber
immediately. No. 3 also immediately runs back; and having no other
operation to perform, replaces the leading reins, and the whole are
ready to mount again, for the performance of any further manœuvre
that may be ordered, in less than a minute from the word “Cease
firing” having been given.
It is obvious that the combined celerity and quantity of the
discharge of ammunition of this description of artillery cannot be
equalled or even approached, taking in view the means and nature
of ammunition employed, by any other known system; the
universality also of the operation, not being incumbered with wheel
carriages, must be duly appreciated, as, in fact, it can proceed not
only wherever cavalry can act, but even wherever infantry can get
into action; it having been already mentioned that part of the
exercise of these troops, supposing them to be stopped by walls, or
ditches and morasses, impassable to horses, is to take the holsters
and sticks from the horses, and advance on foot.
Another vast advantage is the few men required to make a
complete section, as by this means the number of points of fire is so
greatly multiplied, compared to any other system of artillery. Thus it
may be stated that the number of bouches a feù, which may
comparatively be brought into action, by equal means, on the scale
of a troop of horse artillery, would be at least six to one; and that
they may either be spread over a great extent of line, or
concentrated into a very small focus, according to the necessity of
the service; indeed the skirmishing exercise of the Rocket Cavalry,
divided and spread into separate sections, and returning by sound of
bugle, forms a very interesting part of the system, and can be well
imagined from the foregoing description and the annexed Plate.

Plate 3
Fig. 1

Fig. 2
 ROCKET CARS.
Plate 4, Fig. 1, represents a Rocket Car in line of march. There
are two descriptions of these cars, of similar construction—one for
32 or 24-pounder ammunition, the other for 18 or 12-pounder; and
which are, therefore, called heavy or light cars: the heavy car will
carry 40 rounds of 24-pounder Rockets, armed with cohorn shells,
and the light one will convey 60 rounds of 12-pounder, or 50 of 18-
pounder ammunition, which is packed in boxes on the limber, the
sticks being carried in half lengths in the boxes on the after part of
the carriage, where the men also ride on seats fixed for the purpose,
and answering also for small store boxes; they are each supposed to
be drawn by four horses.
These cars not only convey the ammunition, but are contrived
also to discharge each two Rockets in a volley from a double iron
plate trough, which is of the same length as the boxes for the sticks,
and travels between them; but which, being moveable, may, when
the car is unlimbered, be shifted into its fighting position at any
angle from the ground ranges, or point blank up to 45°, without
being detached front the carriage.
Fig. 2 represents these Rocket Cars in action: the one on the left
hand has its trough in the position for ground firing, the trough
being merely lifted off the bed of the axle tree on which it travels,
and laid on the ground, turning by two iron stays on a centre in the
axle tree; the right hand car is elevated to a high angle, the trough
being raised and supported by the iron stays behind, and in front by
the perch of the carriage, connected to it by a joint, the whole kept
steady by bolting the stays, and by tightening a chain from the
perch to the axle tree. The limbers are always supposed to be in the
rear. The Rockets are fired with a portfire and long stick; and two
men will fight the light car, four men the heavy one.
The exercise is very simple; the men being told off, Nos. 1, 2, 3,
and 4, to the heavy carriage. On the words, “Prepare for action, and
unlimber,” the same process takes place as in the 6-pounder
exercise. On the words, “Prepare for ground firing,” Nos. 2 and 3
take hold of the hand irons, provided on purpose, and, with the aid
of No. 4, raise the trough from its travelling position, and lower it
down to the ground under the carriage; or on the words “Prepare to
elevate,” raise it to the higher angles, No. 4 bolting the stays, and
fixing the chain. No. 1 having in the mean time prepared and lighted
his portfire, and given the direction of firing to the trough, Nos. 2, 3,
and 4, then run to the limber to fix the ammunition, which No. 2
brings up, two rounds at a time, or one, as ordered, and helping No.
1 to place them in the trough as far back as the stick will admit: this
operation is facilitated by No. 1 stepping upon the lower end of
either of the stick boxes, on which a cleat is fastened for this
purpose; No. 1 then discharges the two Rockets separately, firing
that to leeward first, while No. 2 returns for more ammunition: this
being the hardest duly, the men will, of course, relieve No. 2 in their
turns. In fighting the light frame, two men are sufficient to elevate
or depress it, but they will want aid to fix and bring up the
ammunition for quick firing.

Plate 4
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
 ROCKET INFANTRY IN LINE OF
MARCH, AND IN ACTION.
Plate 5, Fig. 1, represents a sub-division of Rocket infantry in line
of march—Fig. 2, the same in action. The system here shewn is the
use of the Rockets by infantry—one man in ten, or any greater
proportion, carrying a frame, of very simple construction, from which
the Rockets may be discharged either for ground ranges, or at high
angles, and the rest carrying each three rounds of ammunition,
which, for this service, is proposed to be either the 12-pounder Shell
Rockets, or the 12-pounder Rocket case shot, each round equal to
the 6-pounder case, and ranging 2,500 yards. So that 100 men will
bring into action, in any situation where musketry can be used,
nearly 300 rounds of this description of artillery, with ranges at 45°,
double those of light field ordnance.
The exercise and words of command are as follow:
No. 1 carries the frame, which is of very simple construction,
standing on legs like a theodolite, when spread, and which closes
similarly for carrying. This frame requires no spunging, the Rocket
being fired merely from an open cradle, from which it may be either
discharged by a lock or by a portfire, in which case. No. 1 also
carries the pistol, portfire-lighter, and tube box. No. 2 carries a small
pouch, with the requisite small stores, such as spare tubes, portfires,
&c.; and a long portfire stick.
Nos. 3, 4, and 5, &c. to 10, carry each, conveniently, on his
back, a pouch, containing three Rockets; and three sticks, secured
together by straps and buckles.
 With this distribution, they advance in double files. On the word
“Halt,” “Prepare for action,” being given, No. 1 spreads his frame,
and with the assistance of No. 2, fixes it firmly into the ground,
preparing it at the desired elevation. No. 2 then hands the portfire
stick to No. 1, who prepares and lights it, while No. 2 steps back to
receive the Rocket; which has been prepared by Nos. 3, 4, &c. who
have fallen back about fifteen paces, on the word being given to
“Prepare for action.” These men can always supply the ammunition
quicker than it can be fired, and one or other must therefore
advance towards the frame to meet No. 2 with the round prepared.
No. 2 having thus received the Rocket, places it on the cradle, at the
same instant that No. 1 puts a tube into the vent. No. 2 then points
the frame, which has an universal traverse after the legs are fixed;
he then gives the word “Ready,” “Fire,” to No. 1, who takes up his
portfire and discharges the Rocket. No. 1 now sticks his portfire stick
into the ground, and prepares another tube; while No. 2, as before,
puts the Rocket into the frame, points, and gives the word “Ready,”
“Fire,” again. By this process, from three to four Rockets a minute
may, without difficulty, be fired from one frame, until the words
“Cease firing,” “Prepare to advance,” or “retreat,” are given; when
the frame is in a moment taken from the ground, and the whole
party may either retire or advance immediately in press time, if
required. To insure which, and at the same time to prevent any
injury to the ammunition, Nos. 3, 4, &c. must not be allowed to take
off their pouches, as they will be able to assist one another in
preparing the ammunition, by only laying down their sticks; in taking
up which again no time is lost.
If the frame is fired with a lock, the same process is used,
except that No. 1 primes and cocks, and No. 2 fires on receiving the
word from No. 1.
For ground firing, the upper part of this frame, consisting of the
chamber and elevating stem, takes off from the legs, and the bottom
of the stem being pointed like a picquet post, forms a very firm
bouche a feù when stuck into the ground; the chamber at point
blank being at a very good height for this practice, and capable of
traversing in any direction. The exercise, in this case, is, of course, in
other respects similar to that at high angles.

Plate 5
Fig. 1

Fig. 2
 THE MODE OF USING ROCKETS IN
BOMBARDMENT.
Plate 6, Fig. 1, represents the mode of carrying the bombarding
frame and ammunition by men. The apparatus required is merely a
light ladder, 12 feet in length, having two iron chambers, which are
fixed on in preparing for action at the upper end of the ladder; from
which chambers the Rockets are discharged, by means of a musket
lock; the ladder being reared to any elevation, by two legs or pry-
poles, as in Fig. 2. Every thing required for this service may be
carried by men; or a Flanders-pattern ammunition waggon, with four
horses, will convey 60 rounds of 32-pounder Carcasses, in ten
boxes, eight of the boxes lying cross-ways on the floor of the
waggon, and two length-ways, at top. On these the frame, complete
for firing two Rockets at a flight, with spunges, &c. is laid; and the
sticks on each side, to complete the stowage of all that is necessary,
the whole being covered by the tilt. Four men only are required to
be attached to each waggon, who are numbered 1, 2, 3, & 4.
The frame and ammunition having been brought into the
battery, or to any other place, concealed either by trees or houses
(for from the facility of taking new ground, batteries are not so
indispensable as with mortars), the words “Prepare for
bombardment” are given; on which the frame is prepared for
rearing, Nos. 1 and 2 first fixing the chambers on the ladder; Nos. 3
and 4 attaching the legs to the frame as it lies on the ground. The
words “Rear frame” are then given; when all assist in raising it, and
the proper elevation is given, according to the words “Elevate to
35°” or “45°,” or whatever angle the officer may judge necessary,
according to the required range, by spreading or closing the legs of
the frame, agreeable to the distances marked in degrees on a small
measuring tape, which the non-commissioned officer carries, and
which is called—the Elevating Line. The word “Point” is then given:
which is done by means of a plumb-line, hanging down from the
vertex of the triangle, and which at the same time shews whether
the frame is upright or not. Things being thus arranged, Nos. 1 and
2 place themselves at the foot of the ladder, and Nos. 3 and 4 return
to fix the ammunition in the rear, in readiness for the word “Load.”
When this is given, No. 3 brings a Rocket to the foot of the ladder,
having before hand carefully taken off the circle that covered the
vent, and handing it to No. 2, runs for another. In the mean time,
No. 1 has ascended the ladder to receive the first Rocket from No. 2,
and to place it in the chamber at the top of the ladder; by the time
this is done, No. 2 is ready to give him another Rocket, which in like
manner he places in the other chamber: he then primes the locks
with a tube and powder, and, cocking the two locks, after every
thing else is done, descends from the ladder, and, when down, gives
the word “Ready;” on which, he and No. 2 each take one of the
trigger lines, and retire ten or twelve paces obliquely, waiting for the
word “Fire” from the officer or non-commissioned officer, on which
they pull, either separately or together, as previously ordered.
On the Rockets leaving the frame, No. 1 immediately runs up
and spunges out the two chambers with a very wet spunge, having
for this purpose a water bucket suspended at the top of the frame;
which being done, he receives a Rocket from No. 2, as before, No. 3
having, in the mean time, brought up a fresh supply; in doing which,
however, he must never bring from the rear more than are wanted
for each round. In this routine, any number of rounds is tired, until
the words “Cease firing” are given; which, if followed by those,
“Prepare to retreat,” Nos. 3 and 4 run forward to the ladder; and on
the words “Lower frame,” they ease it down in the same order in
which it was raised, take it to pieces, and may thus retire in less
than five minutes: or if the object of ceasing to fire is merely a
change of position to no great distance, the four men may with ease
carry the frame, without taking it to pieces, the waggon following
them with the ammunition, or the ammunition being borne by men,
as circumstances may render expedient.
The ammunition projected from this frame consists of 32-
pounder Rockets, armed with carcasses of the following sorts and
ranges:—

1st.—The small carcass, containing 8 lbs. of carcass composition,

being 3 lbs. more than the present 10-inch spherical carcass.—
Range 3,000 yards.
2nd.—The medium carcass, containing 12 lbs. of carcass
composition, being equal to the present 13-inch.—Range 2,500
yards.
3rd.—The large carcass, containing 18 lbs. of carcass
composition, being 6 lbs. more than the present 13-inch spherical
carcass.—Range 2,000 yards.
Or 32-pounder Rockets, armed with bursting cones, made of
stout iron, filled with powder, to be exploded by fuzes, and to be
used to produce the explosive effects of shells, where such effect is
preferred to the conflagration of the carcass. These cones contain as
follows:—
Small.—Five lbs. of powder, equal to the bursting powder of a
10-inch shell.—Range 3,000 yards.
Medium.—Eight lbs. of powder, equal to the bursting powder of
a 13-inch shell.—Range 2,500 yards.
Large.—Twelve lbs. of powder.—Range 2,000 yards.

N.B. I have lately had a successful experiment, with bombarding

Rockets, six inches diameter, and weighing 148 lbs.—and doubt not
of extending the bombarding powers of the system much further.

Plate 6
Fig. 1

Fig. 2
 THE MODE OF USING ROCKETS IN
BOMBARDMENT, FROM EARTH
WORKS, WITHOUT APPARATUS.
Plate 7, Fig. 1, is a perspective view of a Battery, erected
expressly for throwing Rockets in bombardment, where the interior
slope has the angle of projection required, and is equal to the length
of the Rocket and stick.
The great advantage of this system is, that, as it dispenses with
apparatus: where there is time for forming a work of this sort, of
considerable length, the quantity of fire, that may be thrown in a
given time, is limited only by the length of the work: thus, as the
Rockets may be laid in embrasures cut in the bank, at every two
feet, a battery of this description, 200 feet in length, will fire 100
Rockets in a volley, and so on; or an incessant and heavy fire may,
by such a battery, be kept up from one flank to the other, by
replacing the Rockets as fast as they are fired in succession.
The rule for forming this battery is as follows.
“The length of the interior slope of this work is half formed by
the excavation, and half by the earth thrown out; for the base
therefore of the interior slope of the part to be raised, at an angle of
55°, set off two thirds of the intended perpendicular height—cut
down the slope to a perpendicular depth equal to the above
mentioned height—then setting off, for the breadth of the interior
excavation, one third more than the intended thickness of the work,
carry down a regular ramp from the back part of this excavation to
the foot of the slope, and the excavation will supply the quantity of
earth necessary to give the exterior face a slope of 45°.”
Fig. 2 is a perspective view of a common epaulement converted
into a Rocket battery. In this case, as the epaulement is not of
sufficient length to support the Rocket and stick, holes must be
bored in the ground, with a miner’s borer, of a sufficient depth to
receive the sticks, and at such distances, and such an angle, as it is
intended to place the Rockets for firing. The inside of the
epaulement must be pared away to correspond with this angle, say
55°. The Rockets are then to be laid in embrasures, formed in the
bank, as in the last case. Where the ground is such as to admit of
using the borer, this latter system, of course, is the easiest
operation; and for such ground as would be likely to crumble into
the holes, slight tubes are provided, about two feet long, to preserve
the opening; in fact, these tubes will be found advantageous in all
ground.
Fig. 2 also shews a powerful mode of defending a field work by
means of Rockets, in addition to the defences of the present system;
merely by cutting embrasures in the glacis, for horizontal firing.

Plate 7
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
 A ROCKET AMBUSCADE.
Plate 8, Fig. 1, represents one of the most important uses that
can be made of Rockets for field service; it is that of the Rocket
Ambuscade for the defence of a pass, or for covering the retreat of
an army, by placing any number, hundreds or thousands, of 32 or
24-pounder shell Rockets, or of 32-pounder Rockets, armed with 18-
pounder shot, limited as to quantity only by the importance of the
object, which is to be obtained; as by this means, the most
extensive destruction, even amounting to annihilation, may be
carried amongst the ranks of an advancing enemy, and that with the
exposure of scarcely an individual.
The Rockets are laid in rows or batteries of 100 or 500 in a row,
according to the extent of ground to be protected. They are to be
concealed either in high grass, or masked in any other convenient
way; and the ambuscade may be formed of any required number of
these batteries, one behind the other, each battery being prepared
to be discharged in a volley, by leaders of quick match: so that one
man is, in fact, alone sufficient to fire the whole in succession,
beginning with that nearest to the enemy, as soon as he shall have
perceived them near enough to warrant his firing. Where the
batteries are very extensive, each battery may be sub-divided into
smaller parts, with separate trains to each, so that the whole, or any
particular division of each battery, may be fired, according to the
number and position of the enemy advancing. Trains, or leaders, are
provided for this service, of a particular construction, being a sort of
flannel saucissons, with two or three threads of slow match, which
will strike laterally at all points, and are therefore very easy of
application; requiring only to be passed from Rocket to Rocket,
crossing the vents, by which arrangement the fire running along,
from vent to vent, is sure to strike every Rocket in quick succession,
without their disturbing each others’ direction in going off, which
they might otherwise do, being placed within 18 inches apart, if all
were positively fired at the same instant.
Fig. 2 is a somewhat similar application, but not so much in the
nature of an ambuscade as of an open defence. Here a very low
work is thrown up, for the defence of a post, or of a chain of posts,
consisting merely of as much earth and turf as is sufficient to form
the sides of shallow embrasures for the large Rockets, placed from
two to three feet apart, or nearer; from which the Rockets are
supposed to be discharged independently, by a certain number of
artillery-men, employed to keep up the fire, according to the
necessity of the case.
It is evident, that by this mode, an incessant and tremendous
fire may be maintained, which it would be next to impossible for an
advancing enemy to pass through, not only from its quantity and the
weight and destructive nature of the ammunition, but from the
closeness of its lines and its contiguity to the ground; leaving, in
fact, no space in front which must not be passed over and ploughed
up after very few rounds.
As both these operations are supposed to be employed in
defensive warfare, and therefore in fixed stations, there is no
difficulty involved in the establishment of a sufficient depôt of
ammunition for carrying them on upon the most extensive scale;
though it is obviously impossible to accomplish any thing
approaching this system of defence, by the ordinary means of
artillery.

Plate 8
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
 THE USE OF ROCKETS IN THE
ATTACK AND DEFENCE OF
FORTIFIED PLACES.
Plate 9, Fig. 1, represents the advanced batteries and
approaches in the attack of some fortress, where an imperfect
breach being supposed to have been made in the salient angle of
any bastion, large Rockets, weighing each from two to three
hundred weight or more, and being each loaded with not less than a
barrel of powder, are fired into the ruins after the revetment is
broken, in order, by continual explosions, to render the breach
practicable in the most expeditious way. To insure every Rocket that
is fired having the desired effect, they are so heavily laden, as not to
rise off the ground when fired along it; and under these
circumstances are placed in a small shallow trench, run along to the
foot of the glacis, from the nearest point of the third parallel, and in
a direct line for the breach: by this means, the Rockets being laid in
this trench will invariably pursue exactly the same course, and every
one of them will be infallibly lodged in the breach. It is evident, that
the whole of this is intended as a night operation, and a few hours
would suffice, not only for running forward the trench, which need
not be more than 18 inches deep, and about nine inches wide,
undiscovered, but also for firing a sufficient number of Rockets to
make a most complete breach before the enemy could take means
to prevent the combinations of the operation.
From the experiments I have lately made, I have reason to
believe, that Rockets much larger than those above mentioned may
be formed for this description of service—Rockets from half a ton to
a ton weight; which being driven in very strong and massive cast
iron cases, may possess such strength and force, that, being fired by
a process similar to that above described, even against the
revetment of any fortress, unimpaired by a cannonade, it shall, by its
mass and form, pierce the same; and having pierced it, shall, with
one explosion of several barrels of powder, blow such portion of the
masonry into the ditch, as shall, with very few rounds, complete a
practicable breach.
It is evident, from this view of the weapon, that the Rocket
System is not only capable of a degree of portability, and facility for
light movements, which no weapon possesses, but that its
ponderous parts, or the individual masses of its ammunition, also
greatly exceed those of ordinary artillery. And yet, although this last
description of Rocket ammunition appears of an enormous mass, as
ammunition, still if it be found capable of the powers here supposed,
of which I have little doubt, the whole weight to be brought in this
way against any town, for the accomplishment of a breach, will bear
no comparison whatever to the weight of ammunition now required
for the same service, independent of the saving of time and
expense, and the great comparative simplicity of the approaches and
works required for a siege carried on upon this system. This class of
Rockets I propose to denominate the Belier a feù.
Fig. 2 represents the converse of this system, or the use of these
larger Rockets for the defence of a fortress by the demolition of the
batteries erected against it. In this case, the Rockets are fired from
embrasures, in the crest of the glacis, along trenches cut a part of
the way in the direction of the works to be demolished.

Plate 9
Fig. 1
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