Spencer Perceval was a British statesman and barrister who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1809 until his assassination in May 1812. He is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated, and the only solicitor-general or attorney-general to have become prime minister.
Posthumous portrait by G. F. Joseph, 1812
Perceval studied at Trinity College, Cambridge (pictured)
Jane Perceval (née Wilson) by Vigée Le Brun, 1804
Engraving of the British House of Commons, 1808
Assassination of Spencer Perceval
On 11 May 1812, at about 5:15 pm, Spencer Perceval, the prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was shot dead in the lobby of the House of Commons by John Bellingham, a Liverpool merchant with a grievance against the government. Bellingham was detained; four days after the murder, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. He was hanged at Newgate Prison on 18 May, one week after the assassination and one month before the start of the War of 1812. Perceval remains the sole British prime minister to have been assassinated.
Immediate aftermath of Perceval's assassination, 11 May 1812 (a 1909 representation)
Detail of a posthumous portrait of Spencer Perceval
A contemporary engraving of John Bellingham
William Cobbett, who denounced the government from his prison cell
