Spencer Perceval

The Right Honourable Spencer Perceval
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office 4 October 1809 – 11 May 1812
Monarch	George III (Prince Regent)
Preceded by	The Duke of Portland
Succeeded by	The Earl of Liverpool
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 26 March 1807 – 11 May 1812
Monarch	George III (Prince Regent)
Preceded by	Lord Henry Petty
Succeeded by	Nicholas Vansittart
Personal details
Born	(1762-11-01)1 November 1762 Audley Square, London
Died	11 May 1812(1812-05-11) (aged 49) Lobby of the House of Commons
Political party	Tory
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge

Spencer Perceval, KC (1 November 1762 – 11 May 1812) was a British statesman and Prime Minister. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated.

Childhood and education

Perceval was the seventh son of John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, the second son of the earl’s second marriage. His mother, Catherine Compton, Baroness Arden, was a grand-daughter of the 4th Earl of Northampton. Spencer was a Compton family name; Catherine Compton's great uncle Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington had been Prime Minister.

His father, a political advisor to Frederick, Prince of Wales and King George III, served briefly in the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty and Perceval’s early childhood was spent at Charlton Manor House, which his father had taken to be near Woolwich docks.

Perceval’s father died when he was eight. Perceval went to Harrow, where he was a disciplined and hard-working pupil. It was at Harrow that he developed an interest in evangelical Anglicism and formed what was to be a life-long friendship with Dudley Ryder. After five years at Harrow he followed his older brother Charles to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the declamation prize in English and graduated in 1782.

Legal career and marriage

As the second son of a second marriage, and with an allowance of only £200 a year, Perceval faced the prospect of having to make his own way in life. He chose the law as a profession, studied at Lincoln’s Inn, and was called to the bar in 1786. Perceval’s mother had died in 1783, and Perceval and his brother Lord Arden rented a house in Charlton, where they fell in love with two sisters who were living in the Percevals' childhood home. The sisters’ father, Sir Thomas Spencer Wilson, approved of the match between his eldest daughter Margaretta and Lord Arden, who was wealthy and already a Member of Parliament and Lord of the Admiralty. Perceval, who was at that time an impecunious barrister on the Midland Circuit, was told to wait until younger daughter Jane came of age in three years’ time. When Jane reached 21 in 1790 Perceval’s career was still not prospering, and Sir Thomas still opposed the marriage. So the couple married secretly by special licence in East Grinstead and set up home together in lodgings over a carpet shop in Bedford Row, later moving into Lindsey House in Lincoln’s Inn.

Perceval’s family connections obtained a number of positions for him: Deputy Recorder of Northampton, and Commissioner of Bankrupts in 1790; Surveyor of the Maltings and Clerk of the Irons in the Mint - a sinecure worth £119 a year – in 1791; counsel to the Board of Admiralty in 1794. He acted as junior counsel for the Crown in the prosecutions of Thomas Paine in absentia for seditious libel (1792), and John Horne Tooke for high treason (1794). In 1796 he became a King’s Counsel and had an income of about £1000 a year – money that was needed for his rapidly-growing family; five children (one of whom died) had been born in six years of marriage.

Perceval wrote anonymous pamphlets in favour of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, and in defence of public order against sedition. These pamphlets brought him to the attention of William Pitt and in 1795 he was offered the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He declined the offer.

Political career

Perceval's brother John Perceval, 3rd Earl of Egmont served in William Pitt the Younger's government, which led to his being noticed. He was considered in 1795 as a possible Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland but rejected the idea of a political career. However he accepted nomination as MP for Northampton in 1796, when the proprietor's heir was ineligible, as a family trust. He made several speeches fiercely attacking Charles James Fox and revolutionary politics, which impressed Pitt, who apparently considered him as a possible successor. He was appointed Solicitor of the Ordnance in 1798.

Perceval had no sympathy for Pitt's resignation over Catholic relief after the Act of Union with Ireland. He was therefore promoted in Addington's government to be Solicitor General from 1801, and then to Attorney General from 1802. However, Perceval did not agree with Addington's general policies (especially on foreign policy), and confined himself to speeches on legal issues. When he did defend the government, he was vituperative. He retained office when Pitt returned in 1804. While Perceval instigated prosecutions of radicals, he also reformed the laws on transportation to Australia.

At Pitt's funeral in January 1806, Perceval was one of the emblem bearers. He went into opposition when the new government included Fox, and made many effective speeches against the 'Ministry of All the Talents'. He was especially vehement in his opposition to Catholic emancipation. When the Ministry fell, the Duke of Portland put together a shaky coalition of senior Tories with Perceval as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. With Portland aged, unwell and a figurehead, Perceval was effectively Prime Minister. He even lived at 10 Downing Street for most of the time, despite buying Elm Grove—a large comfortable house in Ealing 8 miles (13 km) to the west of London, and former home of the Bishop of Durham—in 1808.

A painting depicting the assassination of Perceval. Perceval is lying on the ground while his assassin, John Bellingham, is surrendering to officials (far right)

When Napoleon Bonaparte embargoed British trade under the Continental System, Perceval drafted Orders in Council to retaliate against foreign trade. He opposed the government grant to Maynooth College. The government was continuously riven with splits and when the Duke of Portland suffered a stroke in August 1809 there was intense manoeuvring between Perceval and George Canning over who should take over. Perceval won out with the support of Viscount Castlereagh.

Unable to include Canning and his allies, Perceval's administration was notable mostly for its lack of most of the more important statesmen of the period. He had to serve as his own Chancellor after obtaining six refusals of office. The government sometimes struggled in the House of Commons, being defeated in motions critical of both foreign and economic policy. He remained adamantly opposed to reform of the electoral system.

Perceval found himself having to cope with the final descent of King George III into madness. Though Perceval feared that the Prince Regent would dismiss his government, the Prince abandoned the Whigs and confirmed Perceval in office. Later attempts by the Prince to entice others to join the Ministry were unsuccessful. Perceval pursued the Peninsular War doggedly and always defended it against those who prophesied defeat.

The Orders in Council against trade which Perceval had instituted in 1807 became unpopular in the winter of 1811 with Luddite riots breaking out. Perceval was forced to concede an inquiry by the House of Commons.

Assassination

19th century illustration of Perceval's assassination in the Newgate Calendar.

At 5.15 on the evening of 11 May 1812 Perceval was on his way to attend the inquiry into the Orders in Council. As he entered the lobby of the House of Commons a man stepped forward, drew a pistol and shot him in the chest. Perceval died almost immediately, after uttering something that was variously heard as "murder" or "oh my God".

At first it was feared that the shot might signal the start of an uprising, but it soon became apparent that the assassin – who had made no attempt to escape – was a man with an obsessive grievance against the government and had acted alone. John Bellingham was a merchant who had been unjustly imprisoned in Russia and felt he was entitled to compensation from the government.

Perceval left a widow and twelve children aged between twenty and three, and there were soon rumours that he had not left them well-provided for. He had just £106 5s 1d in the bank when he died. A few days after his death Parliament voted to settle £50,000 on Perceval’s children, with additional annuities for his widow and eldest son.

Perceval was buried on 16 May in the Egmont vault at Charlton. At his widow’s request it was a private funeral. Lords Eldon, Liverpool, and Harrowby, and Richard Ryder were pall-bearers. The previous day Bellingham had been tried and, refusing to enter a plea of insanity, found guilty. He was hanged on the 18 May.

Legacy

Perceval's statue at Northampton Guildhall

Perceval was a small, slight, and very pale man. Lord Eldon called him "Little P". He never sat for a portrait; likenesses are based on a death mask by Joseph Nollekens. He is sometimes referred to as one of Britain's forgotten prime-ministers, remembered only for the manner of his death. Although not considered an inspirational leader, he is generally seen as a devout, industrious, principled man who at the head of a weak government steered the country through difficult times. A contemporary MP, Henry Grattan, used a naval analogy to describe Perceval: "He is not a ship-of-the-line, but he carries many guns, is tight-built and is out in all weathers".

Perceval's widow married Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Henry Carr in 1815 and was widowed again six years later. She died aged 74 in 1844. Perceval left six sons and six daughters. Spencer and Frederick became MPs. Spencer served briefly as a commissioner in lunacy, and was an apostle of the Catholic Apostolic Church. A grandson of Frederick was a Canadian rancher and succeeded to the title of 10th Earl of Egmont. John Thomas and Ernest Augustus chose careers as army officers. John spent three years in lunatic asylums and became a campaigner for reform of the lunacy laws. Dudley defended his father's reputation against attacks from Charles Napier, historian of the Peninsular War. Henry entered the Anglican Church and was rector of Elmley Lovett in Worcestershire. Two of Perceval's daughters married: Jane, his eldest child, married her cousin Edward Perceval, Lord Arden's son; Isabella married her cousin Spencer Horatio Walpole. Isabella's son, Spencer Walpole wrote a biography of Perceval. The four unmarried daughters, Frances, Maria, Louisa and Frederica, lived together in Ealing. Frederica, the youngest and last surviving daughter, died aged 95 in 1900 and left money for a church to be built in her father's memory (All Saints, or the Spencer Perceval Memorial Church, Ealing).

Public monuments to Perceval were erected in Northampton, Lincoln's Inn and Westminster Abbey.

Spencer Perceval's administration, October 1809 - May 1812

• Spencer Perceval - First Lord of the Treasury, Leader of the House of Commons, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
• Lord Eldon - Lord Chancellor
• Lord Camden - Lord President of the Council
• Lord Westmorland - Lord Privy Seal
• Richard Ryder - Secretary of State for the Home Department
• Lord Bathurst - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and President of the Board of Trade
• Lord Liverpool - Secretary of State for War and the Colonies and Leader of the House of Lords
• Lord Mulgrave - First Lord of the Admiralty
• Lord Chatham - Master-General of the Ordnance
• Lord Harrowby - Minister without Portfolio

Changes

• December, 1809 - Lord Wellesley succeeds Lord Bathurst as Foreign Secretary. Bathurst continues at the Board of Trade.
• May, 1810 - Lord Mulgrave succeeds Lord Chatham as Master-General of the Ordnance. Charles Philip Yorke succeeds Mulgrave as First Lord of the Admiralty.
• March, 1812 - Lord Castlereagh succeeds Lord Wellesley as Foreign Secretary.
• April, 1812 - Lord Sidmouth succeeds Lord Camden as Lord President. Camden remains in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio.

External links

• More about Spencer Perceval on the Downing Street website.
• "Archival material relating to Spencer Perceval". UK National Archives.
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