On 11 May 1812, the Prime Minister of Britain, Spencer Perceval, was assassinated.

Born in Mayfair, London, younger son of The Earl of Egmont, an Anglo-Irish earl,  in 1762, he was educated at Harrow and Trinty College, Cambridge. Spencer Perceval, was elected as MP for Northampton when he was 33.

He was appointed as Solicitor General and then Attorney General for England and Wales in the Addington ministry, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons in the second Portland ministry, and then became prime minister in 1809.

This was a period of instability with the King, George III mentally ill, and several changes in governing the country, which was at war with Napoleon’s France.

At 5:15 pm, on the evening of 11 May 1812, Perceval was shot as he entered the lobby of the House of Commons, a man stepped forward, drew a pistol and shot him in the chest. The assassin  was John Bellingham, a merchant who believed he had been unjustly imprisoned in Russia and was entitled to compensation from the government, but all his petitions had been rejected. He made no attempt to escape.

John Bellingham was tried on Friday 15 May 1812 at the Old Bailey, where he argued that he would have preferred to shoot the British ambassador to Russia, but insisted as a wronged man he was justified in killing the representative of his oppressors.

Found guilty, Bellingham was hanged in public three days later, 18 May. A subscription was raised for his widow and children

Perceval was buried on 16 May 1812 in the Egmont vault at St Luke’s Church, Charlton, London. At his widow’s request, it was a private funeral.