Billy Butlin - King of the Holiday Camp
Sir Billy Butlin did not invent the British holiday camp, but it was Butlin who turned holiday camps into a multi-million pound industry and an important aspect of British culture from the 1930's through to today, but now a shadow of their scale and appeal from the heyday of the 1950's and 1960's. The Butlin's Redcoats also became famous and launched many a showbusiness career.
Sir William Heygate Edmund Colborne Butlin MBE (1899 – 1980) was born in South Africa . He came to England as a child with his mother when his parents separated, following the family fair around the country. As a young man, he bought a stall in the family fair and discovered that he had a flair for making money from the public.
Butlin soon started his own travelling fair. He proved successful in this endeavour as well, and by 1927, had opened a static fairground in Skegness. Over the next 10 years Butlin expanded his fairground empire, all the time harbouring an idea to increase the number of patrons in his Skegness site by providing accommodation.
Butlin's first holiday camp opened at Skegness in 1936, followed by Clacton, two yorears later. Plans to open a third in Filey were cut short by the outbreak of World War II. Butlin used the war to his advantage, persuading the MoD to complete the Filey Holiday Camp and construct two more camps in Ayr and Pwllheli as training camps, which he reclaimed when the war was over. In the post-war boom, Butlin opened four more camps at Mosney, Bognor Regis, Minehead and Barry Island as well as buying hotels in Blackpool, Saltdean, and Cliftonville.
Butlin's camps offered holidays with three meals a day and free entertainment. When the activities offered initially fell flat at the first holiday camp, Butlin asked Norman Bradford (who was engaged as an engineer constructing the camp) to take on the duty of entertaining the guests, which he did with a series of ice breakers and jokes. This was a huge success and from that point on, entertainment was the heart of Butlins, and Bradford became the first of Butlin's famous Redcoats.
Three of the original camps remain open under the Butlins brand: in Bognor Regis, Minehead, and Skegness. They are now owned and run by Butlins Skyline Ltd, a subsidiary company of Bourne Leisure Ltd, which also operates other leisure brands in the British Isles, including Warner Leisure Hotels and Haven Holidays.
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