Kempton Bunton

Kempton Cannon Bunton (April 1904 – 1976) was a disabled British pensioner who allegedly stole Francisco Goya's painting Portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London in 1961.

A National Archive file released in 2012 revealed that Kempton's son, John, had confessed to the theft in 1969.

Bunton was a retired bus driver who earned £8 a week in 1961 (equivalent to £161 in 2015). In that year, Charles Bierer Wrightsman, a rich American art collector who made his money in the oil business, purchased Goya's painting Portrait of the Duke of Wellington for the sum of £140,000 ($390,000). He had plans to take it to the United States. The British Government decided to buy the painting, for the same sum, to prevent the painting leaving Britain. The move was reported to have enraged Bunton, however, who was embittered at having to pay the television licence fee from his modest income.

According to his own account, from conversations with the gallery guards, Bunton learned that the elaborate electronic security system, of infrared sensors and alarms, was deactivated in the early morning to allow for cleaning. Bunton claimed that, on the early morning of 21 August 1961, he had loosened a window in a toilet and entered the gallery. He had then prised off the framed painting from the display and escaped via the window.

The police initially assumed that an expert art thief was responsible. A letter was received by the Reuters news agency, however, requesting a donation of £140,000 to charity to pay for TV licences for poorer people and demanding an amnesty for the thief, for which the painting would be returned. The request was declined.

The theft entered popular culture, as is referenced in the 1962 James Bond film Dr. No, with the painting is displayed in Dr. No's lair.

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