British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham, drawing by John Heaviside Clark. 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. Perceval remains the only British prime minister to date to have been assassinated.