 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 . 
