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The role of Prime Minister, which started with Sir Robert Walpole in 1721, had become very important in the government of Britain. There were still only two main political parties, the Whigs and the Tories. As we said before, William Pitt the younger, a Tory, was Prime Minister for a very long time. In 1809 a man called Spencer Perceval, a Tory and a supporter of Pitt, became Prime Minister. Sadly, he holds a record that we must all hope will never change. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been killed, assassinated, while in office.
It happened on May 11th 1812 while Perceval was walking through the lobby of Parliament. This is the place where you see reporters like the BBC correspondents Norman Smith and Vicki Young standing to make their reports on BBC news. Perceval was just minding his own business, unlike the BBC two who are, correctly, reporting on everyone else's, when a man walked over to him, took a pistol out of his overcoat and shot Perceval in the chest. The Prime Minister staggered and fell while the man who shot him walked over to a nearby chair and just sat down. Several other MPs carried Perceval to the Speaker's apartments but by the time a doctor arrived, the Prime Minister was dead. He was just 49 years old and left a wife and 12 children. They had actually had 13 children but one had died within a year of his birth.
The man who shot him was John Bellingham, a businessman. He had been falsely imprisoned in Russia in 1804 for owing money and the British government had refused to help. When he was released in 1809 he wanted compensation from the British government but again they refused. His anger grew and he decided to kill the Prime Minister. He was arrested and almost immediately tried and then hanged at Newgate Prison on May 18th, two days after the funeral of Spencer Perceval.
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