Hellfire Club
Hellfire Club was a term used to describe several exclusive clubs for high-society rakes established in Great 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. Such clubs, rumour had it, served as the meeting places of "persons of quality" 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".
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, and met irregularly from around 1749 to around 1760, and possibly up until 1766. 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.
Wharton's club was unusual for its time, as it admitted men and women as equals. Most of the other British clubs of the 18th century were practicing sex segregation. The Greyhound Tavern was one of the meeting places used regularly by Wharton's club, but because women were not to be seen in taverns, the meetings were also held at members' houses and at Wharton's riding club. A 1730s incarnation of the Club under Sir Francis Dashwood instead met at the George and Vulture Inn. This version's 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 and later used by Aleister Crowley.
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