John Wallis Titt was born into a farming family at Elm Farm, Chitterne in 1841. After working on the family farm and for agricultural engineers and millwrights in Basingstoke and Devizes, he opened his own business in Portway in 1872. In 1876 he established the Woodcock Ironworks, adjacent to his own Woodcock House and within 10 years was producing the wind engines which made him famous. When John Wallis Titt died in 1910, he left a thriving business, run by his two sons, which was engaged in many engineering projects, in addition to the manufacture of farm and waterworks equipment, it also handled early bicycles and cars.

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