The Assassination of the Prime Minister: John Bellingham and the Murder of Spencer Perceval

by David C. Hanrahan

The story of the only assassination of a British prime minister.

In a story of suspense, revenge, and personal tragedy, this history tells the interwoven stories of Perceval and Bellingham, detailing not just the events of May 1812, but also the two men's histories, and what led one to take the other's life. The name Spencer Perceval is not as well known as Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy, but he is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated in the almost 300 years that the office has existed. When Perceval arrived at the House of Commons on May 11, 1812, John Bellingham, a successful entrepreneur, shot him in the chest at point-blank range. Within a few minutes he was dead. Bellingham was immediately arrested and put on trial two days later: refusing to plead insanity, he was convicted and hanged before the week was out.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, True Crime

240 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2008

Reviews

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2265088.html[return][return]A workmanlike retelling of all the contemporary historical details of how John Bellingham, blaming the government for failing to come to his aid when a business dispute landed him in a Russian prison for several years, decided that he would kill the British Prime Minister to make his point; and duly did so. He was arrested at the scene, and tried, convicted and executed only a few days later.[return][return]There's not a lot to write about an incident which lasted only a few seconds, even if it ended two men's lives. Hanrahan does his best and gives us all that is known about both assassin and victim. Perceval was a rather rigid anti-Catholic politician, who had however shown some skill in navigating the implementation of the Regency, and had also backed Wellesley/Wellington to the hilt during the crucial phases of the Peninsular War. (My father, who was a historian, once remarked that had it not been for the manner of his untimely end, Spencer Perceval would probably be the most forgotten of British prime ministers; as it is he must compete with Viscount Goderich and Bonar Law.) Perceval, who was 49, left twelve children, six boys and six girls, most of whom survived to adulthood; Bellingham, who was 35, had three children who have disappeared from history.[return][return]A lot of this story has been told before, and Hanrahan misses some turns where a fresh eye might have turned up new material - what, for instance, do today's Russian historians make of Bellingham's travails in St Petersburg? What actually happened to Bellingham's wife and children? (Hanrahan has her reverting to her maiden name, but Wikipedia says she remarried.) There is a lovely new theory that Bellingham was unwittingly put up to the crime by two merchants who wanted to be able to resume trade wth the continent by getting the restrictive Orders in Council withdrawn (as indeed they were after Perceval's death). None of that here. Hanrahan also incorrectly abbreviates Sir Francis Burdett to "Sir Burdett" and Sr James Mansfield to "Sir Mansfield".[return][return]The most interesting intellectual discussion is of the attempt of Bellingham's defence lawyers to plead insanity and avert his execution. It is obvious in any case that Bellingham did not get a fair trial - his defence lawyers were appointed the night before, and did not get a proper chance to talk to him before the trial began; two defence witnesses arrived only after the trial was over; the judge, summing up for the jury, wept openly as he spoke of his own friendship with the victim - but even with the most impartial of proceedings, could Bellingham possibly have been saved from execution for a crime which he freely admitted (though pleading not guilty) and which was committed in front of dozens of witnesses? Bellingham clearly sincerely believed that as a result of his killing the Prime Minister, his grievances against the government would be redressed. He was wrong, of course; but does that make him deluded? And if deluded on that one point, but sane on all others (as he really appears to have been) is that sufficient to excuse him from criminal responsibility for murder?[return][return]I had always thought that a useful standard was that proposed by Robertson Davies' narrator, David Staunton, in his wonderful novel The Manticore (the middle chunk of the Deptford Trilogy: "If a policeman had been standing at your elbow, would you have acted as you did?" (But I can't find that anywhere else, so I guess Davies made it up.) Clearly Bellingham's answer (unlike Staunton's in the novel) would have been "yes"; even though there were no policemen as such in England at the time, there were a lot of people with equivalent roles right beside him when he fired the fatal shot. But I'm not at all sure that that is what the law says; and I'm really not sure what the law ought to say. The law on these questions was poorly developed in 1812, and I suspect that it is not a lot better now.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came into this book stone cold. Knowing nothing of the PM, or his assassin. Hanrahan's book of just over one hundred and ninety pages is a quick read, but is full of primary source information. Brief yet detailed biographies of both men are set with chronological accounts leading to the event in the lobby of the House of Commons on Monday 11th May 1812.
The lone nut John Bellingham was arrested, tried at the Old Bailey on Friday 15th and hung at Newgate on Monday 18th.
He suffered incarceration in Russia over a number of years on charges he declared himself totally innocent and felt he had been ignored by the British government. After years of seeking redress, justice and compensation for his losses to the great and the good, and being ignored, frustrated and obsessed of his plight, he resorted to killing Spencer Perceval.
I'm sure that in the early nineteenth century, if one of His Majesties servants had suffered similar, recompense would not be delayed. Today, while U.K. pay rises are being limited to 1%, we learn that the honourable members of the House have awarded themselves a 10% increase. The disparity continues.
Included in the text is Bellingham's trial transcript. While cold blooded murder was always to result in the rope, this reading is a travesty of justice.
A vivid piece of historical non-fiction.