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 were rumoured to have served as the meeting places of “persons of quality” who wished to take part in socially taboo activities, 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.
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