Hellfire Club

Last updated

Portrait of Francis Dashwood by William Hogarth from the late 1750s, parodying Renaissance images of Francis of Assisi. The Bible has been replaced by a copy of the erotic novel Elegantiae Latini sermonis, and the profile of Dashwood's friend Lord Sandwich peers from the halo. Hogarth Dashwood.jpg
Portrait of Francis Dashwood by William Hogarth from the late 1750s, parodying Renaissance images of Francis of Assisi. The Bible has been replaced by a copy of the erotic novel Elegantiae Latini sermonis, and the profile of Dashwood's friend Lord Sandwich peers from the halo.

"Hellfire club" was a term used to describe several exclusive clubs for high-society rakes established in Britain and Ireland in the 18th Century. The name most commonly refers to Francis Dashwood's Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe. [1] Such clubs, rumour had it, served as the meeting places of "persons of quality" [2] who wished to take part in what were socially perceived as immoral acts, and the members were often involved in politics. Neither the activities nor membership of the clubs are easy to ascertain. The clubs allegedly had distant ties to an elite society known only as "The Order of the Second Circle". [3] [4]

Contents

The first official Hellfire club was founded in London in 1718, by Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton and a handful of other high-society friends. The most notorious club associated with the name was established in England by Francis Dashwood, [5] and met irregularly from around 1749 to around 1760, and possibly up until 1766. [6] The term was closely associated with Brooks's, established in 1764. Other groups described as "Hellfire clubs" were set up throughout the 18th Century. Most of these arose in Ireland after Wharton's had been dissolved. [7]

Duke of Wharton's club

Philip, Duke of Wharton Wharton p.jpg
Philip, Duke of Wharton

Lord Wharton was made a duke by George I [8] and was a prominent politician with two separate lives: the first as a "man of letters" and the second as "a drunkard, a rioter, an infidel and a rake". [9] The members of Wharton's club are largely unknown. Mark Blackett-Ord [10] assumes that members included Wharton's immediate friends: the Earl of Hillsborough, cousin; the Earl of Lichfield; and Sir Ed. O'Brien. Aside from these names, other members are not revealed.

At the time of the London gentlemen's club, when there was a meeting place for every interest, including poetry, philosophy and politics, [11] [12] Wharton's Hellfire Club was, according to Blackett-Ord, [13] a satirical "gentleman's club" which was known to ridicule religion, catching onto the contemporary trend in England of blasphemy. [11] [14] The club was more a joke, meant to shock the outside world, than a serious attack on religion or morality. The supposed president of this club was the Devil, although the members themselves did not apparently worship demons or the Devil, but called themselves devils. [15] Wharton's club admitted men and women as equals, unlike other clubs of the time. [14] The club met on Sundays at a number of different locations around London. The Greyhound Tavern was one of the meeting places used regularly, but because women were not to be seen in taverns, the meetings were also held at members' houses and at Wharton's riding club. [16] [14] [17]

According to at least one source, their activities included mock religious ceremonies and partaking of meals featuring such dishes as "Holy Ghost Pie", "Breast of Venus", and "Devil's Loin", while drinking "Hell-fire punch". [16] [18] Members of the club supposedly came to meetings dressed as characters from the Bible. [18]

Wharton's club came to an end in 1721 [14] when George I, under the influence of Wharton's political enemies (in particular, Robert Walpole) put forward a Bill "against 'horrid impieties'" (or immorality), aimed at the Hellfire Club. [2] [19] Wharton's political opposition used his membership as a way to pit him against his political allies, thus removing him from Parliament. [19] After his Club was disbanded, Wharton became a Freemason, and in 1722 he became the Grand Master of England. [20]

Sir Francis Dashwood's clubs

Sir Francis Dashwood and the Earl of Sandwich are alleged to have been members of a Hellfire Club that met at the George and Vulture Inn throughout the 1730s. [21] Dashwood founded the Order of the Knights of St Francis in 1746, originally meeting at the George & Vulture. [22]

The club motto was Fais ce que tu voudras (Do what thou wilt), a philosophy of life associated with François Rabelais's fictional abbey at Thélème [6] [23] and later used by Aleister Crowley.

Francis Dashwood was well known for his pranks: for example, while in the Royal Court in St Petersburg, he dressed up as the King of Sweden, a great enemy of Russia. The membership of Sir Francis's club was initially limited to twelve but soon increased. Of the original twelve, some are regularly identified: Dashwood, Robert Vansittart, Thomas Potter, Francis Duffield, Edward Thompson, Paul Whitehead and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. [24] The list of supposed members is immense; among the more probable candidates are Benjamin Bates II, George Bubb Dodington, a fabulously corpulent man in his 60s; [25] William Hogarth, although hardly a gentleman, has been associated with the club after painting Dashwood as a Franciscan Friar [26] [27] and John Wilkes, though much later, under the pseudonym John of Aylesbury. [28] Benjamin Franklin is known to have occasionally attended the club's meetings in 1758 during his time in England. As there are no records left (these having been burned in 1774), [29] many of these members are just assumed or linked by letters sent to each other. [30]

Meetings and club activities

Sir Francis's club was never originally known as a Hellfire Club; it was given this name much later. [3] [4] His club in fact used a number of other names, such as the Brotherhood of St. Francis of Wy, [31] Order of Knights of West Wycombe, The Order of the Friars of St Francis of Wycombe, [26] and later, after moving their meetings to Medmenham Abbey, they became the Monks or Friars of Medmenham. [32] The first meeting at Sir Francis's family home in West Wycombe was held on Walpurgis Night , 1752; a much larger meeting, it was something of a failure and no large-scale meetings were held there again. In 1751, Dashwood, leased Medmenham Abbey [26] on the Thames from a friend, Francis Duffield. [33]

On moving into Medmenham Abbey, Dashwood had numerous expensive works done on the building. It was rebuilt by the architect Nicholas Revett in the style of the 18th-century Gothic revival. At this time, the motto Fais ce que tu voudras was placed above a doorway in stained glass. [6] It is thought that William Hogarth may have executed murals for this building; none, however, survive. Eventually, the meetings were moved out of the abbey into a series of tunnels and caves in West Wycombe Hill. [34] They were decorated again with mythological themes, phallic symbols and other items of a sexual nature.

Records indicate that the members performed "obscene parodies of religious rites" according to one source. [35] According to Horace Walpole, the members' "practice was rigorously pagan: Bacchus and Venus were the deities to whom they almost publicly sacrificed; and the nymphs and the hogsheads that were laid in against the festivals of this new church, sufficiently informed the neighbourhood of the complexion of those hermits." Dashwood's garden at West Wycombe contained numerous statues and shrines to different gods; Daphne and Flora, Priapus and the previously mentioned Venus and Dionysus. [36]

A Parish history from 1925 stated that members included "Frederick, Prince of Wales, the Duke of Queensberry, the Earl of Bute, Lord Melcombe, Sir William Stanhope, K.B, Sir John Dashwood-King, bart., Sir Francis Delaval, K.B., Sir John Vanluttan, kt., Henry Vansittart, afterwards Governor of Bengal, (fn. 13) and Paul Whitchead the poet". [37] Meetings occurred twice a month, with an AGM lasting a week or more in June or September. [38] The members addressed each other as "Brothers" and the leader, which changed regularly, as "Abbot". During meetings members supposedly wore ritual clothing: white trousers, jacket and cap, while the "Abbot" wore a red ensemble of the same style. [39] Legends of Black Masses and Satan or demon worship have subsequently become attached to the club, beginning in the late Nineteenth Century. Rumours saw female "guests" (a euphemism for prostitutes) referred to as "Nuns". Dashwood's Club meetings often included mock rituals, items of a pornographic nature, much drinking, wenching and banqueting. [40]

Decline of Dashwood's Club

The downfall of Dashwood's Club was more drawn-out and complicated. In 1762, the Earl of Bute appointed Dashwood his Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite Dashwood being widely held to be incapable of understanding "a bar bill of five figures". (Dashwood resigned the post the next year, having raised a tax on cider which caused near-riots). [41] Dashwood now sat in the House of Lords after taking up the title of Baron Le Despencer after the previous holder died. [42] Then there was the attempted arrest of John Wilkes for seditious libel against the King in the notorious issue No. 45 of his The North Briton in early 1763. [42] During a search authorised by a General warrant (possibly set up by Sandwich, who wanted to get rid of Wilkes), [43] a version of The Essay on Woman was discovered set up on the press of a printer whom Wilkes had almost certainly used. The work was almost certainly principally written by Thomas Potter, and from internal evidence can be dated to around 1755. It was scurrilous, blasphemous, libellous, and bawdy, though not pornographic – still unquestionably illegal under the laws of the time, and the Government subsequently used it to drive Wilkes into exile. Between 1760 and 1765 Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea by the Irish author Charles Johnstone was published. [44] It contained stories easily identified with Medmenham, one in which Lord Sandwich was ridiculed as having mistaken a monkey for the Devil. This book sparked the association between the Medmenham Monks and the Hellfire Club. By this time, many of the Friars were either dead or too far away for the club to continue as it did before. [45] Medmenham was finished by 1766.

Paul Whitehead had been the Secretary and Steward of the Order at Medmenham. When he died in 1774, as his will specified, his heart was placed in an urn at West Wycombe. It was sometimes taken out to show to visitors, but was stolen in 1829. [5] [26]

The West Wycombe Caves in which the Friars met are now a tourist site [46] known as the "Hell Fire Caves".

In Anstruther, Scotland, a likeminded sex and drinking club called The Beggar's Benison was formed in the 1730s, which survived for a century and spawned additional branches in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Honorary membership was extended to the Prince of Wales in 1783. 39 years later, while the Prince (by now King George IV) was paying a royal visit to Scotland, he bequeathed the club a snuff box filled with his mistresses' pubic hair. [47]

Hellfire Clubs in contemporary life

Phoenix Society

In 1781, Dashwood's nephew Joseph Alderson (an undergraduate at Brasenose College, Oxford) founded the Phoenix Society (later known as the Phoenix Common Room), but it was only in 1786 that the small gathering of friends asserted themselves as a recognised institution. [48] The Phoenix was established in honour of Sir Francis, who died in 1781, as a symbolic rising from the ashes of Dashwood's earlier institution. To this day, the dining society abides by many of its predecessor's tenets. Its motto uno avulso non deficit alter 'when one is torn away another succeeds' is from the sixth book of Virgil's Aeneid and refers to the practice of establishing the continuity of the society through a process of constant renewal of its graduate and undergraduate members, but also refers to the alchemical kabbalistic process that a life snatched via sacrifice is a life given back via a spirit at the command of its master. The Phoenix Common Room's continuous history was reported in 1954 as a matter of note to the college. [49]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wilkes</span> English radical, journalist, and politician (1725–1797)

John Wilkes was an English radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of his voters—rather than the House of Commons—to determine their representatives. In 1768, angry protests of his supporters were suppressed in the Massacre of St George's Fields. In 1771, he was instrumental in obliging the government to concede the right of printers to publish verbatim accounts of parliamentary debates. In 1776, he introduced the first bill for parliamentary reform in the British Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Wycombe</span> Human settlement in England

West Wycombe is a small village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, famed for its manor houses and its hills. It is 3 miles (4.8 km) west of High Wycombe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hellfire Caves</span> Network of man-made caverns in England

The Hellfire Caves are a network of man-made chalk and flint caverns which extend 260m underground. They are situated above the village of West Wycombe, at the southern edge of the Chiltern Hills near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, Southeast England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medmenham</span> Human settlement in England

Medmenham is a village and civil parish in south-west Buckinghamshire, England. It is on the River Thames, about 3+12 miles (5.6 km) southwest of Marlow and 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Henley-on-Thames. The parish also includes Danesfield, a housing estate predominantly for RAF officers, although families of other ranks from the RAF, Royal Navy and British Army also live there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Wycombe Park</span> Country house in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England

West Wycombe Park is a country house built between 1740 and 1800 near the village of West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England. It was conceived as a pleasure palace for the 18th-century libertine and dilettante Sir Francis Dashwood, 2nd Baronet. The house is a long rectangle with four façades that are columned and pedimented, three theatrically so. The house encapsulates the entire progression of British 18th-century architecture from early idiosyncratic Palladian to the Neoclassical, although anomalies in its design make it architecturally unique. The mansion is set within an 18th-century landscaped park containing many small temples and follies, which act as satellites to the greater temple, the house.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dunston Pillar</span>

Dunston Pillar is a Grade II listed stone tower in Lincolnshire, England and a former 'land lighthouse'. It stands beside the A15 road approximately 6 miles (10 km) south of Lincoln near the junction of the B1178, in the parish of Dunston, north of Sleaford. Closed to the public. On private land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer</span> British politician (1708–1781)

Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer, PC, FRS was an English politician and rake, Chancellor of the Exchequer (1762–1763) and founder of the Hellfire Club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hall Place</span> Historic building in Bexley, London, U.K.

Hall Place is a stately home in the London Borough of Bexley in south-east London, built in 1537 for Sir John Champneys, a wealthy merchant and former Lord Mayor of London. The house was extended in 1649 by Sir Robert Austen, a merchant from Tenterden in Kent. The house is a Grade I listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument, and surrounded by a 65-hectare award-winning garden. It is situated on the A223, Bourne Road, south of Watling Street (A207) and north of the Black Prince interchange of the A2 dual carriageway and two lesser roads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton</span>

Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton PC was an English peer and Jacobite politician who was one of the few people in the history of England, and the first since the 15th century, to have been raised to a dukedom whilst still a minor and not closely related to the monarch.

Benjamin Edward Bates II was a British physician, art connoisseur, and socialite. Born into wealth, he was a prominent member of society and was selected to become a member of the Sir Francis Dashwood's Hellfire Club, The Monks of Medmenham. He is the great-great-grandfather of Benjamin Bates IV, founder of Bates College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dashwood baronets</span> Baronetcy in the Baronetage of England

There have been two baronetcies created for members of the Dashwood family, one in the Baronetage of England and one in the Baronetage of Great Britain. Both creations are extant as of 2008.

Sir John Dashwood-King, 3rd Baronet, was an English country gentleman. Born John Dashwood, he adopted the additional surname of King by the terms of his uncle Dr. John King's will.

Sir Francis Dashwood, 1st Baronet, of St. Botolph without Bishopsgate, London, and West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, was a British merchant, landowner and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 to 1713.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Divan Club</span>

The Divan Club was a short-lived dining club in 18th century England, with membership open to gentlemen who had visited the Ottoman Empire. The club took its name from the Turkish "divan".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Montpelier Hill</span> Mountain in County Dublin, Ireland

Montpelier Hill is a 383-metre hill in County Dublin, Ireland. It is topped by the Hell Fire Club, the popular name given to the ruined building. This building – an occasional summer residence built in around 1725 by William Conolly – was originally called Mount Pelier and since its construction the hill has also gone by the same name. The building and hill were respectively known locally as 'The Brass Castle' and 'Bevan's Hill', but the original Irish name of the hill is no longer known although the historian and archaeologist Patrick Healy has suggested that the hill is the place known as Suide Uí Ceallaig or Suidi Celi in the Crede Mihi, the twelfth-century diocesan register book of the Archbishops of Dublin.

<i>The Hellfire Club</i> (film) 1964 British film directed by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman

The Hellfire Club is a 1961 film inspired by the historical Hellfire Club, Sir Francis Dashwood's infamous 'gentlemen's' society of the 18th century. It starred Keith Michell and featured Peter Cushing in a cameo as enigmatic attorney Mr Merryweather.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Lawrence's Church, West Wycombe</span> Church in West Wycombe, England

St Lawrence's Church is a Church of England church in the parish of West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. It sits on top of West Wycombe Hill in a prominent position overlooking the West Wycombe Road, and surrounding villages. West Wycombe Hill is managed by the National Trust, although the church and graveyard are owned by the Church of England. The church resides in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. St Lawrence Church and the mausoleum both occupy similar positions on top of West Wycombe Hill, and the Church tower is visible for many miles around. The top of the tower is the highest point in the Southern Chilterns and on a clear day, it is possible to see West London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camberley Obelisk</span> Tower

Camberley Obelisk is a brick tower at the top of a hill in Camberley, Surrey, England. The tower was built by John Norris (1721–1786) in about 1765–1770. The top section of the tower was destroyed by fire in the early 1880s. It is a Grade II listed building.

George Dashwood was an English politician who served as a Tory MP for Stockbridge.

References

Notes

  1. Hellfire Holidays: Damnation, Members Only, Tonyperrottet.com 2009-12-15, accessed 18 December 2009
  2. 1 2 Ashe p.48.
  3. 1 2 Blackett-Ord p. 46
  4. 1 2 Ashe p. 111.
  5. 1 2 "Paul Whitehead". The Twickenham Museum. "The Monks of Medmenham Abbey" (the Hell-Fire Club, founded by Francis Dashwood) of which he became the secretary and steward
  6. 1 2 3 Ashe.
  7. Ashe p. 60.
  8. Ashe p. 52
  9. Blackett-Ord p.70
  10. p. 44[ incomplete short citation ]
  11. 1 2 Blackett-Ord p. 43
  12. Ashe p. 46
  13. p. 43[ incomplete short citation ]
  14. 1 2 3 4 Ashe p. 48
  15. Blackett-Ord p. 44-6
  16. 1 2 Blackett-Ord p. 44
  17. Willens
  18. 1 2 Ashe p. 49
  19. 1 2 Blackett-Ord p. 70
  20. Ashe p. 62
  21. Ashe, Geoffrey (2000). The Hell-Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality . Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. pp.  65. ISBN   9780750924023.
  22. Mike Howard. "The Hellfire Club". Archived from the original on 10 October 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
  23. Alamantra
  24. Ashe p. 115
  25. Ashe p. 113
  26. 1 2 3 4 Simon, Robin (3 November 2008). "High politics and Hellfire: William Hogarth's portrait of Francis Dashwood". Gresham College . Retrieved 11 January 2010. Infamous rake (and Chancellor of the Exchequer), Sir Francis Dashwood was the founder of the Hellfire Club
  27. Coppens
  28. Ashe p. 120
  29. City of Blood, Cities of the Underworld – History Channel 2 (H2), 2008
  30. Ashe p. 121
  31. Ashe p.111
  32. Ashe p. 112
  33. Ashe p.118
  34. Medmenham Abbey – Home of the Notorious Secret Society ‘Hellfire Club’
  35. The Thames Path: National Trail from London to the river's source
  36. Ashe p. 114
  37. Parishes: Medmenham Pages 84–89 A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3
  38. Ashe p. 125
  39. Ashe p 125
  40. Ashe p. 133
  41. Ashe p. 155
  42. 1 2 Ashe p. 157
  43. Ashe p. 158
  44. Ashe p. 177
  45. Ashe p. 167
  46. "Hell-fire Caves United Kingdom | the Temple Trail".
  47. Gatrell, Vic, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London, Walker and Company, 2006, pg 313
  48. See also A Century of the Phoenix Common Room, Brasenose College, Oxford, 1786–1886, records edited by F. Madan, Oxford, 1888.
  49. 'Brasenose College', A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 3: The University of Oxford (1954), pp. 207–219. British-history.ac.uk

Bibliography