Hellfire Club was a name for several exclusive clubs for high-society rakes established in 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, 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. In its later years the Hellfire was closely associated with Brooks's, established in 1764. Other groups using the name "Hellfire Club" were set up throughout the 18th century. Most of these clubs arose in Ireland after Wharton's had been dissolved. Duke of Wharton's club Lord Wharton, made a duke by George I, was a prominent politician with two separate lives: the first a "man of letters" and the second "a drunkard, a rioter, an infidel and a rake". The members of Wharton's club are largely unknown. Mark Blackett-Ord assumes that members included Wharton's immediate friends: Earl of Hillsborough, cousin – the Earl of Lichfield and Sir Ed. O'Brien. Aside from these names, other members are not revealed. At the time of the London gentlemen's club, where there was a meeting place for every interest, including poetry, philosophy and politics, Wharton's Hellfire Club was, according to Blackett-Ord, a satirical "gentleman's club" which was known to ridicule religion, catching onto the then-current trend in England of blasphemy. The club was more a joke, meant to shock the outside world, than a serious attack on religion or morality. The supposed president of this club was the Devil, although the members themselves did not apparently worship demons or the Devil, but called themselves devils. Wharton's club admitted men and women as equals, unlike other clubs of the time. The club met on Sundays at a number of different locations around London. The Greyhound Tavern was one of the