page_title: Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet
section_title: Congreve Rockets
hierarchical_section_title: Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet / Congreve Rockets
context_page_description: Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet KCH FRS was an English inventor and rocket artillery pioneer distinguished for his development and deployment of Congreve rockets, and a Tory Member of Parliament.
context_section_description: Mysorean rockets were the first iron-cased rockets that were successfully deployed for military use. Hyder Ali, the 18th century ruler of Mysore and his son and successor Tipu Sultan used them effectively against the British East India Company during the Anglo-Mysore Wars, beginning in 1780 with the Battle of Pollilur (1780).
  In battles at Seringapatam in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British.
  The Indian rocket experiences, mentioned in Munro's book of 1789, eventually led to the Royal Arsenal beginning a military rocket R&D program in 1801. Several rocket cases were collected from Mysore and sent to Britain for analysis. The development was chiefly the work of William Congreve, who set up a research and development programme at the Woolwich Arsenal's laboratory. After development work was complete the rockets were manufactured in quantity further north, near Waltham Abbey, Essex. He was told that "the British at Seringapatam had suffered more from the rockets than from the shells or any other weapon used by the enemy." "In at least one instance", an eyewitness told Congreve, "a single rocket had killed three men and badly wounded others."
  It has been suggested that Congreve may have adapted iron-cased gunpowder rockets for use by the British military from prototypes created by the Irish nationalist Robert Emmet during Emmet's Rebellion in 1803. But this seems far less likely given the fact that the British had been exposed to Indian rockets since 1780 at the latest, and that a vast quantity of unused rockets and their construction equipment fell into British hands at the end of the Anglo-Mysore Wars in 1799, 4 years before Emmet's rockets.
  Congreve first demonstrated solid fuel rockets at the Royal Arsenal in 1805. He considered his work sufficiently advanced to engage in two Royal Navy attacks on the French fleet at Boulogne, France, one that year and one the next. In 1807 Congreve and sixteen Ordnance Department civilian employees were present at the Bombardment of Copenhagen, during which 300 rockets contributed to the conflagration of the city.
  Congreve rockets were successfully used for the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars, with the most celebrated employment of the weapon being at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. The "rockets' red glare" in the American national anthem describes their firing at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. In January 1814 the Royal Artillery absorbed the various companies armed with rockets into two Rocket Troops within the Royal Horse Artillery. They remained in the arsenal of the United Kingdom until the 1850s. Congreve organized the impressive firework displays in London for the peace of 1814 and for the coronation of George IV in 1821.
caption: Tip of a Congreve rocket, on display at Paris naval museum
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