Franklin and the Monks of Medmenham

Over forty years ago I bought a paperback copy of Murder in the Hellfire Club by Donald Zochert. It was a historical murder mystery written in 1978 that featured Benjamin Franklin as the detective.

I never finished that book, but I suspect I’ve still got it. Somewhere.

I recalled that book after recent reading about the mid-1700s “Monks of Medmenham Abbey”—a group which, as discussed here, was dubbed a “Hellfire Club” by authors only in the next century. Franklin’s alleged connection to that organization struck me as a good case study of what we actually know.

Several books about this “Hellfire Club” claim that Franklin joined the group in 1757 or shortly afterward. He came to Britain that year and stayed until 1762. The Medmenham group had not yet fallen apart over political offices. Franklin knew lots of people, so a connection was at least possible.

But as for evidence of a link between Franklin and the Medmenham Monks? Well, there really isn’t any. One author, Geoffrey Ashe, acknowledged this in a backhanded way in his 1974 book, The Hell-Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality:

By the later 1750s a change had set in. Some of the senior brethren were losing interest, and were being replaced by a fresh intake. To this phase, if to any, belongs the reputed membership of Benjamin Franklin. He sounds a surprising person to meet in this setting, but he was more anti-clerical, heavier in his drinking, and laxer in his sexual habits and outlook than American hagiography cares to admit. Dodington’s pamphleteer James Ralph was a former comrade of his and accompanied him on his first trip to England. Later in the life of Dashwood we encounter Franklin on close and admiring terms with him, and staying as his guest at West Wycombe. It was in 1757, however, that Franklin made his second visit to England, which lasted five years; the Dashwood connection could have begun then, and the story of his admission to Medmenham has not been refuted.

Look at all the hedging: “To this phase, if to any”; “reputed membership”; “could have begun”; and the crowning “has not been refuted.”

Of course, accurate history doesn’t rest on repeating statements that haven’t been refuted. It depends on citing evidence for the statements one makes.

I searched Franklin biographies for such evidence. His close friendship with Baron le Despencer, formerly the baronet Sir Francis Dashwood, in the 1770s is well documented by letters, Franklin’s autobiography, even a book they wrote together. Twenty years earlier Dashwood had been a founder of the Medmenham group. But did he make Franklin a member, or invite him to meetings?

The most that Phillips Russell could say in The True Benjamin Franklin (1926) is:

In Lord le Despencer Franklin found the kind of man which he most looked up to. His lordship was elegantly wicked, and so was possessed of a quality which Franklin admired with his whole heart. There can be little doubt that membership in the Hell Fire Club, though perhaps not accepted, would have enticed him irresistibly. We already know how he loved clubs and good company.

In sum, Russell had no evidence Despencer invited Franklin to his Medmenham club and no evidence that Franklin accepted, but wasn’t it fun to imagine?

And then in 1958 an author published a book about the Medmenham Monks with tantalizing hints that Franklin was indeed involved.

TOMORROW: The crucial breakthrough?