Raising Hell: The Notorious History of the Hellfire Clubs
By: Denise Shelton
Tags: Sex, 18th Century, History, Hellfire Club, To Catch A Thief

Raising Hell: The Notorious History of the Hellfire Clubs

Gentlemen (and ladies) behaving badly

“A Rake’s Progress III: The Rake at the Rose-Tavern” by William Hogarth, circa 1730s (public domain)

Hellfire clubs have been around for over 300 years. They have a reputation as dens of iniquity and riotous, orgiastic revelry. There is very little documentary evidence about the proceedings. (The first rule of Hellfire Club is apparently “You do not talk about Hellfire Club.”)

Rumors abound, and several people have attempted to bring them to life in literature and other mediums. Suffice it to say that nobody but club members knows what goes on in a hellfire club. What follows are the facts as we know them.

The Hellfire Club founded 1719

Painting of Philip, Duke of Wharton by Rosalba Carriera, circa 1719 (Public Domain)

Philip, the Duke of Wharton (1698–1731), is credited with founding the first so-named Hellfire Club in 1719 when he was just 20 years old.

The primary purpose of Wharton’s club was the performance of satirical religious ceremonies, possibly inspired by the works of Voltaire and the then-popular fad among the upper classes of blasphemy.

Unlike later hellfire clubs, Wharton’s club accepted women as full members. The club held its meetings on Sundays at various locations around London.

According to Geoffery Ashe’s The Hell-Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality, club members came to meetings dressed as characters from the Bible and dined on such delicacies as “Holy Ghost Pie,” “Breast of Venus,” and “Devil’s Loin,” while drinking “Hellfire punch.”

Wharton’s club was disbanded in 1721 when his political enemies convinced King George I to prohibit such “impieties.” He subsequently joined the Freemasons and became its Grand Master of England in 1722.

The Duke’s party-hearty lifestyle caught up with him eventually. He died a penniless alcoholic at the age of 32.

The Beggar’s Benison founded 1732

Platter used in club initiation ceremonies involving group masturbation. (Image via adcochrane.wordpress.com, fair use)

The official title of this Scottish gentlemen’s club was “The Most Ancient and Most Puissant Order of the Beggar’s Benison and Merryland.” Benison means “blessing” and “Merryland” is a euphemism for a woman’s body.

The club’s name comes from a story about King James V, who received a blessing from a beggar woman, which they adapted into the club’s motto: “May prick nor purse ne’er fail you.”

“Her valleys are like Eden, her hills like Lebanon, she is a paradise of pleasure and a garden of delight.” — A description of “Merryland” by erotic novelist Thomas Stretzer, 1740

Beggar’s Benison medal from 1826 fetched £526 at auction in 2001 (Image via lyonandturnbull.com, fair use)

Founded by a group of wealthy landowners and merchants in 1732 in Anstruther, the club endured until 1836, having by then added branches in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Membership may have been as high as 500 individuals.

Club meetings involved drinking, banqueting, sharing pornography, ogling naked female models, reading erotic verses, listening to lectures about sexual practices, and group masturbation, which they called “frigging.”

The Monks of Medmenham founded c. 1750

Sketch of the entryway of the George and Vulture Inn by Francis Hopkinson Smith, 1915 (Public Domain)

Artist William Hogarth’s cautionary tale in pictures called A Rake’s Progress gives us an idea of some of the activities pursued by hellfire club members in the 18th century. These eight paintings tell the story of a young man’s descent into debauchery.

If you’re a fan of Regency novels, you know that a “rake” (aka “rakehell” meaning “hellraiser”) is an antiquated term for a man who spends his time drinking, gambling, and womanizing. Since this lifestyle requires a fair amount of free time, rakes typically were members of the upper class.

Hellfire clubs were a place where rakes and their “light-o’-loves” (mistresses and prostitutes) were able to indulge in scandalous behavior safe from the prying eyes of more respectable aristocrats.

Portrait of Francis Dashwood by Adrien Carpentiers, c. 1744 (Public Domain)

Politician and quintessential rake Sir Francis Dashwood (1708–1781) founded and presided over what was perhaps history’s most notorious hellfire club, The Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe.

A sociable fellow who loved a good joke, Dashwood was also a notorious prankster. At the Royal Court in St Petersburg, he dressed up as the King of Sweden, Russia’s sworn enemy. While in Rome, he and his friends sometimes masqueraded as members of the Roman Catholic clergy.

Dashwood previously founded at least two other clubs, the Society of Dilettanti and the Divan Club. These were primarily drinking and dining clubs. The Diletattni focused their conversation around art, and the Divans shared stories about their travels in the Ottoman Empire.

Portrait of Dashwood in a parody of St. Francis of Assisi by William Hogarth, 1750s (public domain)

Writer Horace Walpole described the Dilettanti Club as “a club for which the nominal qualification is having been to Italy, and the real one, being drunk; the two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy.”

Dashwood and John Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich, were members of a hellfire club that met at the George and Vulture Inn in London, but Dashwood longed for a more private place to entertain.

Although married, Dashwood’s wife was described by Walpole as “a poor forlorn Presbyterian prude,” which may be one of the reasons he spent so much time out partying with his friends. They never had any children.

Inspired by his travels abroad, Dashwood conceived of a mock monastic order, where the members would indulge in distinctly un-monklike behavior. He created the club to support his favorite pastimes: making fun of religion, drinking, and having indiscriminate sex.

About 1755, Dashwood and his friends rented Medmenham Abbey, an abandoned monastery located alongside the River Thames, just a few miles from Dashwood’s estate in West Wycombe. This would become their official clubhouse.

The group consisted of Dashwood and eleven of his friends who called themselves the “Monks of Medmenham.” In addition to the Earl of Sandwich, members included Dashwood’s half-brother Sir John Dashwood-King; Richard Grenville, Earl Temple; Sir Thomas Stapleton; Paul Whitehead; Sir George Lyttelton, and John Wilkes, according to correspondence between Wilkes and Dashwood. The “monks” met twice a year and were encouraged to bring female guests of “a cheerful, lively disposition.”

Portrait of the Earl of Sandwich’s mistress, opera singer Martha Ray by Nathaniel Dance, date unknown (public domain)

“No vows of celibacy were required either by the ladies or the ‘Monks’, ‘the former considering themselves as the lawful wives of the brethren during their stay within the monastic walls; every Monk being religiously scrupulous not to infringe upon the nuptial alliance of any other brother.” — from the book Noctural Revels, 1779

The monks hired architect Nicholas Revett to remodel the abbey in the Gothic Revival style. In stained glass over the grand entrance were the club’s motto taken from French Renaissance writer François Rabelais, ”Fay ce que voudras” (Do what you will).

Entrance to the Hellfire Caves tourist attraction in Medmenham (image via Wikipedia, fair use)

Another notable feature of Dashwood’s club was a series of manmade caves on the abbey property where club members held some of their activities. The caves are still owned by the Dashwood family, who give family-friendly tours there and rent them out for parties and special events.

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Jean Baptiste Greuze, c. 1777 (public domain)

American revolutionary and founding father, Benjamin Franklin, attended at least one club meeting while a guest at Dashwood’s home.

The Monks of Medmenham soon increased their membership beyond the original twelve. The list of other presumed members of this hellfire club is a long one. Many of the people whose names are associated with it may have only been guests and not full members.

It’s even possible that rumors of their involvement are false and were just spread by their enemies to discredit them. For that reason, I won’t include them here.

Although some believed that the club members practiced Satanism, there is no evidence to support this. Dashwood and his friends did not perform their rituals in earnest; they just considered them part of the joke. The monks mocked Christian ceremonies or aped pagan rituals as a means of titillating their guests.

In letters to each other, club members speak gleefully of the “wickedness” of their “love feasts.” Everyone wore costumes, ate rich food, drank to excess, and got friendly with their companions. Although they did tell people that the Devil was the head of their club, they considered him more of a mascot than anything else.

Portrait of John Wilkes by Richard Houston, 1769 (public domain)

One unsubstantiated story tells how John Wilkes set a baboon dressed as the Devil loose at one of the club’s revels. The Earl of Sandwich supposedly thought the baboon was the Devil and begged it for mercy. If true, this may be the reason their once close friendship fell apart, with Sandwich getting his revenge by having Wilkes tried for seditious libel. Parliament expelled Wilkes as a result.

“I shall only now and then drink to the pious memory of the delightful moments I have passed in your wicked company, and begin to attach myself to all the interested pursuits of this world, as the sure road to a better.” — Earl Temple in a letter to Sir Francis Dashwood

NOTE: For more on Sir Francis Dashwood and the Monks of Medmenham, check out Jason M. Kelly’s excellent blog Secrets of the Hellfire Club.

Hellfire clubs in modern times

Still in existence is the Phoenix Society (now known as the Phoenix Common Room), which was founded by Sir Francis Dashwood’s nephew Joseph Alderson at Brasenose College, Oxford University, in 1781. It is the oldest dining club at Oxford. If any of Dashwood’s nastier habits are embraced by club members today, they aren’t saying.

Secret hellfire clubs supposedly exist at Trinity College and Maynooth University in Ireland. These clubs are said to carry out similar actions as the 18th-century hellfire clubs, including mock ceremonies and drinking alcohol. We can only hope the practices of the Beggar’s Benison are a thing of the past.