If, like me, you thought that the Hell-Fire club was a group of dissolute noblemen having satanic orgies in caves below West Wycombe in the middle of the eighteenth century, this brilliant history will open your eyes to the whole gamut of groups of young men (and occasionally women) who met together to drink, have fun, fornicate and, sometimes, be violent. The Damned Crew and the Mohocks were hooligans who terrorised London streets. The Ballers "danced naked with prostitutes" (Ch 1). The Beefsteaks ... ate steak. The Demoniacs told one another rude stories. And the Beggar's Benison, whose initiation rite involved masturbation, read pornographic books.
This is a fascinating account of bad behaviour during the Enlightenment. Some very respectable men used their positions of wealth and privilege to enjoy themselves ("By day the club members might be courtiers, Members of Parliament and respectable members of the community. By night they broke social rules to experience forbidden pleasure.”;Introduction), no matter what the consequences were for the rest of society. And they got away with it. This is a story which resonated to our own times.
And some of the characters (Earl of Rochester, Duke of Wharton, Sir Francis Dashwood etc) were spectacularly wicked.
It even includes the perplexing mystery of how a club of roues in East Fife could read a book that wasn't published for another ten years ...
Selected quotes:
- “The Enlightenment ... was also an age when pleasure was seen as a right for everyone.” (Introduction)
- “The Enlightenment was also the Age of Experience, and the hell-fire clubs ... were out to grab experience by the neck" (Introduction)
- “The Damned Crew ... would meet together on nights, and vow amongst themselves to kill the next man they met whosoever.” (Ch 1)
- “He and his companions provoked a riot by standing naked on the balcony of the aptly named Cock Tavern in Bow Street, throwing bottles, into which they had pissed, on to the crowd below.” (Ch 1)
- “They acted in an anti-social way because in restored England they knew they could, and they knew from personal experience that social and religious certainties could be swept away.” (Ch 1)
- “Many liberties were spurred on by the belief that death truly was the end.” (Ch 1)
- “The members of reformation societies believed sin to be the result of a struggle between God and the Devil that the Devil had won ... The societies had no qualms about private vice as long as it did not impinge on the lives of others.” (Ch 1)
- “A gang of young gentlemen made random attacks on passers-by, beat up the watch and insulted the constables. Good men feared to go out at night, but neither were they safe behind locked doors as the Mohocks smashed windows, pulled door-bells and assaulted the servants who answered them.” (Ch 2)
- “a low room that's stunk like a drunkard's morning breath.” (Ch 3)
- “British writers on the continent show that they were likely to seek out their countrymen wherever they went, whereas Continental visitors to Britain interacted freely with the native population and joined in social events, soaking up the culture of the coffee-house and the tavern.” (Ch 4)
- “Soaping your own beard could be a euphemism for masturbation.” (Ch 5)
- “David Hume ... believed that society must channel human nature into constructive directions through laws and customs.” (Ch 8)
- “it was recognised by the authorities that the tavern was the place where a workman could go to sit in the warmth with his fellows after a hard day’s labour, a place where the merchant could meet his peers and discuss business, and where gentlemen could gather over a bowl of wine and discuss the affairs of the day.” (Ch 9)
May 2022; 214 pages
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