John Williams's dream of the Perceval shooting

Williams, a Redruth man in Cornwall, said he dreamed of a shooting in the House of Commons lobby before Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was shot there on 11 May 1812. The accounts disagree on which night he had the dream.

Spencer Perceval, prime minister of the United Kingdom, was shot dead inside the Commons lobby at about 5:15 pm on 11 May 1812. Wikipedia names the gunman as Bellingham, a merchant from Liverpool angry at the government. He was detained, then tried, convicted and sentenced to death four days after the shooting. Newgate Prison was where he was hanged, on 18 May.

A dream story attached itself to the killing. Williams, a Redruth man in Cornwall, was said to have dreamed of standing in that lobby and watching a man shoot a small figure dressed in blue and white. In the account, the bullet went in beneath the left breast. Futility Closet says Williams woke his wife on the night of 11 May 1812 and told her what he had seen, and that he slept again twice and dreamed it twice more.

The accounts disagree on the date. The text printed in The Times of 16 Aug 1828 has Williams placing the dream on roughly 2 or 3 May 1812. Strange History says that 1828 printing is the earliest trace of the story it could find, sixteen years after the shooting. It also notes serious discrepancies between that version and a later one, and asks who wrote the 1828 text.