The Education of an Eighteenth-Century Squire: John Wilkes (1725-1797)

Much of the knowledge that we have of the Monks of Medmenham Abbey derives from the scandals and political debates surrounding John Wilkes, who was a key proponent of political reform in the third quarter of the eighteenth century.  It is easy to overlook Wilkes’s education in a rush to explore the controversies of the 1760s and 1770s.  However, the nature of Wilkes’s education provides insight into the intellectual milieu of the Hellfire Club. continued . . .