diff --git a/akka-actor/src/main/resources/reference.conf b/akka-actor/src/main/resources/reference.conf
index ecbf916a9a..f31e61bcbe 100644
--- a/akka-actor/src/main/resources/reference.conf
+++ b/akka-actor/src/main/resources/reference.conf
@@ -80,6 +80,7 @@ akka {
                                        # Dispatcher, (BalancingDispatcher, only valid when all actors using it are of the same type),
                                        # A FQCN to a class inheriting MessageDispatcherConfigurator with a no-arg visible constructor
       name = "DefaultDispatcher"       # Name used in log messages and thread names.
+      daemonic = off                   # Toggles whether the threads created by this dispatcher should be daemons or not
       keep-alive-time = 60s            # Keep alive time for threads
       core-pool-size-min = 8           # minimum number of threads to cap factor-based core number to
       core-pool-size-factor = 8.0      # No of core threads ... ceil(available processors * factor)
diff --git a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/AbstractDispatcher.scala b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/AbstractDispatcher.scala
index 0f6091d23b..35284879a4 100644
--- a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/AbstractDispatcher.scala
+++ b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/AbstractDispatcher.scala
@@ -287,7 +287,7 @@ abstract class MessageDispatcherConfigurator() {
 
     //Apply the following options to the config if they are present in the config
 
-    ThreadPoolConfigDispatcherBuilder(createDispatcher, ThreadPoolConfig())
+    ThreadPoolConfigDispatcherBuilder(createDispatcher, ThreadPoolConfig(daemonic = config getBoolean "daemonic"))
       .setKeepAliveTime(Duration(config getMilliseconds "keep-alive-time", TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS))
       .setAllowCoreThreadTimeout(config getBoolean "allow-core-timeout")
       .setCorePoolSizeFromFactor(config getInt "core-pool-size-min", config getDouble "core-pool-size-factor", config getInt "core-pool-size-max")
diff --git a/akka-docs/scala/code/DispatcherDocSpec.scala b/akka-docs/scala/code/DispatcherDocSpec.scala
index f132a5e90f..057ce05602 100644
--- a/akka-docs/scala/code/DispatcherDocSpec.scala
+++ b/akka-docs/scala/code/DispatcherDocSpec.scala
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ object DispatcherDocSpec {
     //#my-dispatcher-config
     my-dispatcher {
       type = Dispatcher             # Dispatcher is the name of the event-based dispatcher
+      daemonic = off                # Toggles whether the threads created by this dispatcher should be daemons or not
       core-pool-size-min = 2        # minimum number of threads to cap factor-based core number to
       core-pool-size-factor = 2.0   # No of core threads ... ceil(available processors * factor)
       core-pool-size-max = 10       # maximum number of threads to cap factor-based number to