On 11th May 1812, the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, 
was passing through the Member's Lobby to the Commons 
when a tall man in tradesman's dress stepped forward, 
took out a pistol, and shot him dead on the spot. Perceval 
(an otherwise undistinguished politician) thus became the 
only British Prime Minister ever to be assassinated. His 
last words were 'oh, I am murdered.'

The assassin was John Bellingham, the son of a 
Huntingdonshire land surveyor who had died insane. Bellingham 
had tried his luck in Russia, and been imprisoned there for five years 
for debt. During this time, he had developed a grudge against the
government for failing to get him released. He was tried and hanged for his offence within seven days.