Monument to Spencer Perceval
In memory of The Right Honourable excellent and most Amiable Spencer Perceval, Basely and Barbarously murdered in the Exercise of his Duty May 11th 1812. / And you, great Spencer, with your latest breath, Did'st feel your ruling passion strong in Death. Such in those moments as in all the past Oh save my country Heaven was your last.Context & sources
DIFFERENT CATEGORY - a formal aristocratic estate monument to a national political assassination, not a roadside marker at the crime scene, which sets it apart from most entries here. Found via a search of Historic England's own listings for the word 'murdered'. Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister 1809-1812, was shot dead in the lobby of the House of Commons on 11 May 1812 by John Bellingham, a merchant with a grievance over a debt dispute the government had failed to resolve - he remains the only British Prime Minister ever assassinated. This sarcophagus-on-plinth monument stands not at the murder site in Westminster but at Thoresby Park in Nottinghamshire, seat of the Manvers family (Earls Manvers), presumably erected through a personal or political connection to Perceval rather than any link to the crime scene itself. Grade II listed.
Behind a paywall
- Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England, Part 33, Nottinghamshire - cited as Historic England's own source, not located online here.
Needs an in-person visit
- Thoresby Park archives / Nottinghamshire Archives - the connection between Perceval and the Manvers family that led to this monument being erected here specifically hasn't been established from sources checked here.
- Town
- Perlethorpe, Thoresby Park
- County
- Nottinghamshire
- Country
- England
- Coordinates
- 53.2211, -1.0364
- Year
- 1812
- Condition
- Legible
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