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Hellfire Club

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For other uses, see Hellfire Club (disambiguation).
Portrait of Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron le Despencer 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 The bible has been replaced by a copy of the erotic novel Elegantiae Latini sermonis, and the profile of Dashwood's friend Lord Sandwich peers from the halo.

The Hellfire Club was the popular name for a number of supposed exclusive clubs for high society rakes. The most infamous club was established in England, by Sir Francis Dashwood[1] and met irregularly from 1746[citation needed] to around 1760 as an extension to his Society of Dilettanti.

Sir Francis' club used a number of other names, such as the Brotherhood of St. Francis of Wycombe, Order of Knights of West Wycombe and later, the after moving their meetings to Medmenham Abbey they became the Monks or Friars of Medmenham [2]. Other clubs using the name "Hellfire Club" were set up throughout the 18th century, another notable club was founded around 1719 in London by Philip, Duke of Wharton.

Unlike the more determined Satanists of the 1720s, the club motto was Fait ce que vouldras (Do what thou wilt) from François Rabelais, later used by Aleister Crowley. 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."

Founders and Members

The two most infamous Hellfire Clubs were founded by Sir Francis Dashwood and Philip, Duke of Wharton. The membership was initially limited to twelve but soon increased. Of the original twelve, some are regularly identified: Dashwood, Robert Vansittart, Thomas Potter the son of John Potter the Archbishop of Canterbury, Francis Duffield, Edward Thompson and Paul Whitehead. Benjamin Franklin is said to have occasionally attended the club's meetings during 1758 [3] [4] as a non-member during his time in England. The name George Bubb Dodington, a fabulously corpulent man in his 60s, is often cited. Though hardly a gentleman, William Hogarth has been associated with the club after painting Dashwood as a Franciscian Frair [5]. Many Hellfire Club members have been linked to Freemasonry. We see this with the Duke of Wharton, who after having his Club disbanded became the Grandmaster of England. The list of supposed members is immense; among the more probable candidates are John Wilkes and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. Whatever the nature (the existence, even) of such club, there is no question that several events in the early 1760s prevented further activities on the part of Dashwood.

Meetings and Club Activities

According to George Knowles, the first gatherings of Sir Francis' Club was originally in his family home in West Wycombe, however it was not the right place for the frivolous activities he had planned. In 1751, Dashwood leased Medmenham Abbey on the Thames (about six miles from his childhood home of West Wycombe) [6] from a friend, Francis Duffield [7]. On moving into the Abbey, Dashwood had numerous expensive works done on the building.

The members addressed each other as "Brothers" and Dashwood as "Abbot". During meetings members supposedly wore ritual clothing; white pants, jacket and cap while the "Abbott" (Dashwood) wore a red ensemble of the same style. Rumours of Black Masses, orgies and Satan or demon Worship were well circulated during the time the Clubs were around. Other clubs, especially in Ireland and Scotland were rumoured to take part in far more dubious activities. However, these activities were, according to Noblitt and Perskin, to cover the real reason for the club's existence - sexual activities. Many of the Hell Fire Clubs were allegedy created to provide male members with opportunities for "sexual debauchery" [8]. Female "guests" (a euphemism for prostitutes) were referred to as "Nuns".

Fire and rebuilding

The George and Vulture Pub, a notorious meeting place, burned down in 1749, possibly as a direct result of a club meeting. It was rebuilt shortly thereafter and survives as a city chop house off Cornhill. Dickens lived and wrote here for a period of time. The Pickwick Club still meets there to this day. After a hiatus, meetings were resumed at members' homes. Dashwood built a temple in the grounds of his West Wycombe home and nearby "catacombs" were excavated. The first meeting at 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. Despite this and the factionalising of the club Dashwood acquired the ruins of Medmenham Abbey in 1755[9], which was rebuilt by the architect Nicholas Revett in the style of the 18th century Gothic revival. It is thought that William Hogarth may have executed murals for this building; none, however, survive.

Later years

The first was the rise of the Earl of Bute and the Tory party to power following the accession of George III in 1760. In 1762 Bute appointed Dashwood his Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite Dashwood's 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.) The second was the publication (1762–5) of Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea by Charles Johnstone, in which Lord Sandwich was ridiculed as having mistaken a monkey for the Devil, supposedly during a rite of the club. The third was the attempted arrest and prosecution of John Wilkes for seditious libel against the King in the notorious issue 45 of his The North Briton in early 1763. During a search authorized by a General warrant 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, libelous, and pornographic, unquestionably illegal under the laws of the time, and the Government subsequently used it to drive Wilkes into exile, although he later returned and reestablished himself as a successful politician.

References

  1. ^ Noblitt and Perskin
  2. ^ Noblitt and Perskin
  3. ^ Walsh
  4. ^ Noblitt and Perskin
  5. ^ Coppens
  6. ^ Howard
  7. ^ Knowles
  8. ^ Noblitt and Perskin
  9. ^ Mannix

The Hell-Fire Clubs. 22 July 2006. 19 Mar. 2008 <http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/history/hellfire/hellfire.html>.

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