Perceval, Spencer

Perceval, Spencer (1762–1812). Prime minister. Perceval was the seventh son of John, earl of Egmont. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he became associated with the evangelical group led by Isaac Milner. Having to make his own way in the world, he trained for the bar and practised on the midland circuit. His appointment as a commissioner of bankrupts in 1790 enabled him to marry Jane, daughter of Sir Thomas Wilson, MP for Sussex. He came to notice as a junior counsel for the crown in the trials of the radicals Tom Paine and Horne Tooke but he declined Pitt's offer of the chief secretaryship in Ireland in 1795 because the salary would not support his increasing family. His connections from the midland bar helped to secure him election as MP for Northampton, where he was deputy recorder, in 1796.

Wilberforce thought him the most generous of evangelical Christians: he gave away all that he could spare to the poor, disapproved strongly of gambling and hunting (though he was a steward of Northamptonshire races), and would have made adultery a criminal offence. He refused to transact business on Sundays, held regular family prayers, and was a student of biblical prophecy. He considered the primacy of the Church of England as essential to the security of the state and he was a most determined opponent of catholic emancipation.

Perceval's forensic skills made him an effective parliamentary speaker and he rose quickly up the political ladder, becoming solicitor‐general under Addington in 1801 and attorney‐general in 1802. He agreed to stay on under Pitt in 1804 only on condition that there should be no concessions to the catholics. In Portland's ministry of 1807–9 he became chancellor of the Exchequer and was given the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster as well, to increase his income. He reluctantly accepted the leadership of the House of Commons as a compromise candidate and, after the duel between Castlereagh and Canning brought about Portland's resignation, he was appointed prime minister in October 1809, with the king's enthusiastic approval.

Perceval was by no means an ineffective prime minister. He survived the crises of the inquiry into the Walcheren expedition and the Burdett riots in London in 1810 and doggedly supported the expedition to the Peninsula which was to play a major part in the eventual defeat of Napoleon. He modelled his financial policies on Pitt's and at least kept the war effort going. On George III's final relapse into insanity in 1810 he was confirmed in office by the prince regent but his career was brought to a sudden end on 11 May 1812 when he was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons by an aggrieved and deranged Russia merchant named John Bellingham, who mistook him for Castlereagh.