Spencer Perceval

Shot on 11 May 1812 in the lobby of the House of Commons by John Bellingham; the only British prime minister ever assassinated.

Overview

Spencer Perceval, Tory prime minister since 1809 amid the Napoleonic wars, was walking through the members lobby when Bellingham, a Liverpool merchant ruined by imprisonment in Russia and refused compensation by the government, fired a pistol into his chest. He died within minutes. Bellingham, who had advertised his grievance for years and blamed the ministers personally, made no attempt to flee and was hanged within a week after a trial where an insanity plea was rejected. The killing of a prime minister inside parliament shocked Britain into lasting security precautions. Perceval death left his government intact and the war policy unchanged, and his family was famously left nearly penniless, saved only by a public subscription. Bellingham grave at St Botolph remains a curiosity of legal history.