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Catastrophists: The Vulcans Table of
Contents
King Kill 33, by James Shelby Downard
with Michael A. Hoffman II
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 The bible has been replaced by a copy of the erotic novel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 what is supposed to have been an exclusive
English club established by Sir Francis Dashwood which met irregularly
from 1746 to around 1760 as an extension to his Society of Dilettanti.
There is no evidence that they referred to themselves by this name,
rather it is likely they used the names of a number of mockingly
religious titles, beginning with the Brotherhood of St. Francis of
Wycombe. Other titles used included the Order of Knights of West Wycombe
and later, the Monks of Medmenham. Other clubs using the name "Hellfire
Club" were set up throughout the 18th century, most notably the
"Hell-Fire Club" founded around 1719 in London by Philip, Duke of
Wharton.
The members
addressed each other as "Brothers" and Dashwood as "Abbot". Female
"guests" (prostitutes) were "Nuns". 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."
Meeting
Place and Initial Members
According to
tradition, the first gathering of this "unholy sodality" was in May of
1746 at the George and Vulture public house in Castle Court, near
Lombard Street, City of London. This meeting-place, however, has been
ascribed to several other of the Hellfire Clubs, so it must be treated
as anecdotal. Later it met on Dashwood's properties at West Wycombe
Caves and at Medmenham Abbey, beside the Thames. 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 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Francis Duffield, Edward
Thompson and Paul Whitehead. Benjamin Franklin is said to have
occasionally attended the club's meetings as a non-member. 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.
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, 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 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.
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 authorised 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. This scurrilous, blasphemous, libellous
pornographic skit, principally written by Thomas Potter which can from
internal evidence be dated to around 1755, was subsequently to be used
by the Government as the means by which to destroy Wilkes as a public
figure.
References
in popular culture
The Hellfire Clubs
of popular culture tend to be based on Dashwood's rather than any of the
others.
-
The Hellfire
Club (1961) is a film featuring Peter Cushing.
-
A recreation
of the Hellfire Club is the focus of an episode of The Avengers,
called "A Touch of Brimstone", notorious for Diana Rigg's risqué
outfit. Peter Wyngarde, the main guest-star of the episode, has an
official fan club also named after the club.
-
The suspense
of Olivier Assayas's film Demonlover (2002) partly regards The
Hellfire Club both as a critical element and as a metaphorical
border between reality and virtual world.
-
British comedy
programme Blackadder refers to the club in Blackadder the Third,
with Prince George making numerous comments about spending time at
'The Naughty Hellfire Club'.
-
The Doctor Who
Audio Drama Minuet in Hell (produced by Big Finish) features a
modern-day Hellfire Club based in the USA, while the original Club
features in the eighth Doctor novel The Adventuress of Henrietta
Street.
-
In the episode
"The Call of the Yeti" in the second series of The Mighty Boosh,
Naboo has a conversation with another Shaman, during which they
recall a night out at "Wycombe caves".
-
In Australia,
formerly connected Hellfire Clubs with a BDSM theme were founded in
Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane by underground film director and
producer Richard Wolstencroft. The only remaining Hellfire Club, in
Sydney is run by Craig Donarski and Wet Set Editor Jackie McMillan.
[1]
-
The Hellfire
Club is a Marvel Comics supervillain organization. The group is
based in a modern time version of the original club, that has become
a sort of gentlemen club for the rich and powerful.
-
The Hellfire
Club is the title of a 1996 novel by Peter Straub.
-
Kathy Reichs's
novel Fatal Voyage involves a Hellfire Club spinoff in the US begun
in the early 20th century by Prentice Dashwood, a descendant of Sir
Francis. This group, which calls itself H&F, practices ritual
cannibalism to impart wisdom to its leaders. According to the
novel, the group met its demise in 2001.
-
The Hellfire
Club is presented in Karen Moline's novel Belladonna as a secret
society flourishing well into the 1950s and involved in the
auctioning of young women.
-
Diana
Gabaldon's short story "Hellfire", written in 1998, was the first of
her Lord John Grey mystery stories set in 18th century London. While
trying to solve a murder mystery, Lord John finds himself being
initiated into the Hellfire Club at Medmenham Abbey.
-
There have
been an electronica band and a country band called The Hellfire
Club, as well as one band called The Little Hellfire Club, another
called The Infamous Hellfire Club, and yet another called The
Electric Hellfire Club.
-
There is also
a UK NU-NRG group called Hellfire Club consisting of Baby Doc and SJ,
usually releasing tracks on the Resist/React Label.
-
Horrorcore Rap
Artists Tommie and Phatty Smallz of Robinson, Illinois, Go under the
name "The Hellfire Club"
-
Hellfire Club
is the title of the sixth studio album by the German power metal
band, Edguy, released in 2004.
-
Hard NRG VII,
also called The Hellfire Club, is an album by DJ Proteus. The album
also contains a track called "The Hellfire Club".
-
The Hellfire
Club appears in the comic "Histoire Secrete" along with an
appearance of Dr. John Dee, although it is clearly anachronistic
since the story took place in 1666.
-
Goth rock act
The Electric Hellfire Club have claimed to be a modern version of
the society.
Source
-
Sex, Rakes and
Libertines. The Hell-Fire Clubs, by Geoffrey Ashe, Sutton
Publishing, 2005, ISBN 0-7509-3835-8
-
The Hell Fire
Club, by Daniel P. Mannix, Four Square Books, 1961 (previously
published in the USA by Ballentine Books, Inc.).
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