Sir William Heygate Edmund Colborne ("Billy") Butlin, (29 September 1899 - 12 June 1980), was the founder of Butlins Holiday Camp.Billy Butlin was born in South Africa. His father, also called William Butlin, was the son of a clergyman but his mother, Bertha Hill, was a member of a family of travelling showmen. They lived in Stanley, Gloucestershire, before emigrating to South Africa.The marriage failed, Billy's mother returned to England with her children and rejoined her own family in Bristol.
For a time Billy joined his mother in travelling around the fair circuit but, in 1911 his mother remarried and emigrated to Canada. Billy was boarded with a widow in Bristol. Later Billy joined his mother and step-father in Toronto, Canada. At school in Canada Billy was mocked for his English accent and left at the age of 14. His first job was messenger boy at Eatons, Toronto's largest department store. One of the best aspects of working for the company was that he was able to visit their summer camp, which gave him his first taste of a real holiday, indeed a taste of what was to become a vet big part of his life.
After a spell in the Canadian Army, Butlin returned to England and for a while ran a hoopla stall for his mother's family. He moved to London and set up a very successful stall in Olympia outside the Christmas Circus run by Bertram Mills. By the end of the season Billy had made enough money to bring his mother (now widowed) from Canada.
After a few years touring with Hills Travelling fair, leaving his mother to run the stall at Olympia. In 1927 he leased a piece of land from the earl of Scarborough at the seaside town of Skegness. He set up a holiday fun park with hoopla stalls,a tower slide,a haunted house ride and, in 1928, a scenic railway and dodgem cars - the first in Britain.
Later on he rented disused bus garages in Whitechapel, Brixton, Tooting, Putney, Hammersmith and Marble Arch in London and turned them all into funfairs. His mother, Berta, died in 1933 and so never saw his first holiday camp.For some time Butlin had nurtured the idea of a holiday camp. He had seen landladies (sometimes literally) push families out of their lodgings between meal, irrespective of the weather. Butlin toyed with the idea of providing holiday accommodation that encouraged holiday-makers to stay in the premises and even provide entertainment for them between meals. He opened his first Butlins camp at Ingoldmells, adjoining Skegness on 11 April 1936 (Easter Eve). It was officially opened by Amy Johnson from Hull, who was the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. An advertisement in the Daily Express invited people to book for a week, enclosing ten shillings as a registration fee. The holidays offered three meals a day and free entertainment. A week's full board cost between 35 shillings and three pounds according to the time of the year.
The camp was a huge success and other camps soon followed at Clacton (1938) and Filey (1945), Pwllheli and Ayr (both in 1947), and still more at Mosney(1948), Bognor Regis (1960). Minehead (1962) and Barry Island (1966). The growth of his business was spurred by World War II when a number of camps were requisitioned for use as military training camps, generating revenues for a post-war boom.
In the 1950s Butlin began acquiring hotels in Brighton, Blackpool, and several in Cliftonville. In later years they were joined by further hotels in Scarborough, Llandudno, London and Spain. The camps at Ayr and Skegness also had separate self-contained hotels within the grounds.
In 1972 the company was sold to the Rank Organisation for £43 million. Butlin was knighted in 1964 and retired in 1968. Billy Butlin was not the first Butlin to have been knighted as his great uncle, who lived from (1845-1912) was the eminent surgeon , Sir Henry Trentham Butlin.
Billy Butlin died on 12 June 1980, aged 80.
