PAINTINGS by a man who became an artist after getting sacked as an Oxfordshire customs officer made more than £50,000 at auction.

Eight paintings of prize cows by Richard Whitford, who lived in Watlington, were auctioned by Bonham’s in London on Wednesday, almost exactly 120 years after his death.

Each of the paintings was expected to fetch between £1,500 and £2,000, but instead sold for a combined total of £51,480.

An image of a prize cow in a barn fetched £12,600 and another of a prize cow by a gate went for £11,400.

Mr Whitford, who was born in Evesham in the early 1820s, became a customs and excise man aged 19.

Family historian Andrew Sheldon said Mr Whitford was dismissed from his post in 1848 after an issue involving five shillings and threepence paid by a tobacco and tea dealer.

Queen Victoria is said to have commissioned five paintings, although none remains in the Royal Collection.