Mark Whitton founded Whitton's in the early 1900s carrying timber with a horse and cart. After World War I the company carried coal to the gas works and local paper mills. In 1923 they bought their first Sentinel steam lorry and carried paper to Bristol, returning with animal feed. During the Second World War they were run by the Ministry of Transport and after the war were nationalised to become part of British Road Services. The brothers who had owned the company moved back into haulage, setting up a new firm which went into receivership in the 1970s and was then bought by Wild Transport of Exeter in 1973.