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Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron le Despencer (December, 1708 - December 11, 1781) was an English rake and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (1762-1763) and founder of The Hellfire Club.
He was born in London, and educated at Eton College where he became associated with William Pitt the Elder. Orphaned at age 16, he went on a Grand Tour of Europe in 1726.
Shortly after his return to England, Dashwood founded the Hellfire Club. According to the 1779 book Nocturnal Revels, on the Grand Tour he had visited various religious seminaries, "founded, as it were, in direct contradiction to Nature and Reason; on his return to England, * thought that a burlesque Institution in the name of St Francis, would mark the absurdity of such Societies; and in lieu of the austerities and abstemiousness there practised, substitute convivial gaiety, unrestrained hilarity, and social felicity."
For his activities in the Hellfire Club he was in his day widely regarded as being involved in devil worship.
He was Postmaster General for a period, and during this time corresponded with Benjamin Franklin, his opposite number in the North American colonies. The two - feeling that church services were too long - produced an anonymous Abridgement of the Book of Common Prayer in 1773.
He commissioned West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire.
Fictional references
In The Illuminatus! Trilogy Dashwood is mentioned as one of the original five leaders of the Illuminati.
External links
1708 births | 1781 deaths | Barons in the Peerage of England | People of Buckinghamshire | Lords Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire | Thelema | Thelemites
"Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron le Despencer"