Huntingdonshire, about 1771. His father was a land-surveyor and miniature-painter. Becoming insane, he was for some time confined in St. Luke’s Hospital, London; but being found incurable he was taken home, where he died soon afterwards. Bellingham, at the age of fourteen, was apprenticed to a jeweller in Whitechapel, named Love, from whom, after giving much trouble and annoyance, he ran away. In 1786 his mother’s sister’s husband, a Mr. Daw, yielding to the solicitations of his wife and Mrs. Bellingham, fitted the young man out for India, whither he sailed in the ship Hartwell, in the Company’s service. This vessel was wrecked off one of the Cape de Verd Islands, and young Bellingham managed to get home again, penniless—having lost everything he possessed. Still influenced by his female relatives, Mr. Daw next took a shop in the tinware trade for Bellingham. This shop was in Oxford-street; but a fire occurring in it, Bellingham asserted that he had a large number of bank-notes destroyed. It was suspected he was cognizant of the origin of this fire; but nothing could be proved against him. In 1794 he became bankrupt; but his creditors were so disgusted with the statement of his affairs, that they would not grant him his certificate, and he never obtained it. We next find him obtaining employment in a merchant’s counting-house; and after
being with them some time he was sent out by them to Archangel. He remained there about three years, and then entered into partnership with a firm there. He then came to Hull where he entered into contracts for the delivery of £12,000 worth of timber, but only £4,000 worth was ever delivered upon the bills drawn, accepted, and paid. Upon this transaction Bellingham was arrested and imprisoned in Hull, where he remained seven months. On his release he went back to Archangel, where he had no sooner arrived than he was again thrown into prison. He appealed vehemently against this arrest to the English Consul, and also to the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg, Lord Levison Gower; but they both declined interfering, as they considered his arrest legal and justifiable. On his release he came to Liverpool, whence he went to Dublin, where he met his future wife, Miss Neville, a native of Newry. Having become possessed of a legacy of £400, left him by his aunt, Mrs. Daw, he returned to Liverpool, where he commenced business as an Insurance and General Broker. He now began memorializing the government on the subject of his claims upon Russia. General Gascoigne presented his petitions. All he got was a constant refusal of interference. There is no doubt that some of the wrongs he complained of were partly imaginary, and that he perhaps inherited
his father’s malady. Finding his appeals of no avail he determined upon being revenged in some way or other upon somebody. On the 11th May, 1812, he posted himself, soon after five o’clock, near the door of the lobby of the House of Commons, and as Mr. Spencer Percival approached, he drew a pistol from his breast pocket, and fired at the right honourable gentleman. The shot took effect, and Mr. Percival died almost immediately afterwards. General Gascoigne, one of the members for Liverpool, was one of the first to recognize the assassin, and, in fact, seized him and took from him his pistols. It was not thought he had any particular enmity against Mr. Percival, but that he would have assassinated any other of His Majesty’s Ministers had they fallen in his way at the time. He said he had been a fortnight making up his mind to this bloody deed. He bought his pistols from a well-known gunmaker in Fleet-street, and so desirous was he that they could be depended upon, that he went to Primrose Hill, in the outskirts of London, to try them. It was said that he had his coat altered, and a capacious and readily accessible pocket made in it; in which pocket, in fact, the discharged pistol was found. Bellingham to the last maintained his contumacious and determined character. He justified his frightful deed, and expressed himself resigned to his
fate and prepared to meet it. His atrocious act caused a great sensation in the town. The news that it had been perpetrated, had, however, scarcely reached us in Liverpool before we heard of his trial and execution. He was tried on the 16th of May and executed on the 18th. Short shriving was then the mode!
In Suffolk-street, which runs out of Duke-street, there once dwelt a droll person named Peter Tyrer. He let out coaches and horses for hire. Many funny stories were current about him. I recollect one to the effect that a customer of his, a gentleman residing in Duke-street, complained several times that Peter had supplied him with a coach so stiff in the springs as to be quite unpleasant to ride in it. The next time a coach was sent for by this gentleman, Peter sent him a hearse! On being asked his reason for so doing, his reply was that “so many people had ridden in that vehicle and never made any complaint, that he supposed it must be a very comfortable conveyance.”
CHAPTER IV.
Before I exhaust my recollections of Duke-street and its celebrities, I ought not to omit mention of a worthy gentleman who resided in it, and whose name occupied the attention of the public in many ways, in all honourable to himself, as a man, a soldier, and a citizen. I refer to Colonel Bolton, whose mansion in Duke-street, between Suffolk-street and Kent-street (called after, and by Mr. Kent, who lived at the corner of the street, and who also named the streets adjacent after the southern counties), was in bye-gone years the head-quarters of the Tory party in Liverpool, in election times. From the balcony of that house, wherein the utmost hospitality was always exercised, the great statesmen who have represented Liverpool in Parliament—George Canning and William Huskisson—have many a time poured forth the floods of their eloquence,
stirring up the heart’s-blood of the thousands assembled in the street to hear them, making pulses beat quicker, and exciting passions to fever-heat. Mr. Canning used also to address the electors from Sir Thomas Brancker’s house in Rodney-street.
The lengths to which election zeal carried men may be understood, when, during the progress of an election, business was suspended in the town for days and days. Hatred, envy, and malice were engendered. Neighbour was set against neighbour, and I have known many instances where serious divisions in families have taken place when opposite sides in politics have been chosen by the members of such families. It has required years to heal wounds made in family circles, and time in some instances never succeeded in bringing relatives to esteem each other again. The small knot of reformers in this town stuck manfully together and fought their battles well; and if the Tory side could boast of substantial names amongst their ranks, those of Henry Brougham, Egerton Smith, Dr. Shepherd, Mr. Mulock, Edward Rushton, and many others, occupy a place in the pantheon of worthies who stood forward on all great and public occasions when improvement in the constitution was to be advocated. I recollect a time when it was scarcely wise for a man to confess himself a reformer. At the beginning of this century, when the horrors
of the French Revolution were fresh in all men’s minds, and knowing so well as we did that there were many mischievous, dangerous, and disaffected people amongst us, ripe and ready to foment and foster broils, bringing anarchy and confusion in their train, it seemed to be the duty of all men who had characters and property to lose, to stick fast to the state as it was, without daring to change anything, however trifling or however necessary. A man was almost thought a traitor to talk of reform or change at one time, for there were not a few influential men who would rather have risen on the ruins of Old England than have fallen with her glory. Ticklish times we had in the beginning of the present century.