Spencer Percival 11 May

On this day in 1812 The Right Honourable Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was shot through the heart in the Lobby of the House of Commons. He is the only British Prime Minister ever to have been assassinated. Perceval was on his way to attend the inquiry about trade restrictions when John Bellingham, who was demanding compensation for his imprisonment in Russia, shot him. The circumstances are peculiar to say the least. In autumn 1803, a Russian ship Soyuz was lost in the White Sea. The owners (the house of R. Van Brienen) attempted to claim on their insurance but an anonymous letter informed Lloyd’s that the ship had been sabotaged. Soloman Van Brienen suspected Bellingham was the author, and accused him of a debt of 4,890 roubles. Bellingham, who had been working in Russia as a merchant was on the verge of leaving for Britain but on November 16 1804, was imprisoned. Eventually he was permitted to leave and arrived back in England in December 1809. Oddly, Bellingham (who’s father had been insane, by the way) decided to petition the United Kingdom Government for compensation for his imprisonment. Despite pleas from friends and family to desist, he persisted and on April 18 1812 he went in person to the offices of the Foreign Office where a civil servant called Hill told him he would not be compensated and that he was ‘at liberty to take whatever measures he thought proper’. What he thought proper was to lurk in the lobby of the House of Commons and on May 11 1812, he drew one of a pair of pistols concealed in specially made pockets in his coat and shot the Prime Minister as he passed through to the chamber. He was taken up, found guilty, sentenced to death, and hanged in public on Monday May 18. In the 1983 general election, his descendant Henry Bellingham was elected to Parliament for North West Norfolk and some years later in 1997 one of his opponents was Roger Percival, a descendant of Spencer Perceval.