honorific_prefix resting_place death_date death_place birth_place nationality resting_place_coordinates signature_alt name honorific_suffix birth_date known_for spouse signature image article_title birth_name organization
sir saint john , jersey 12 june 1980 blair adam house , jersey cape town , south africa british 49 14 45.9600 n 2 8 36.60 w inline william butlin billy butlin mbe 29 september 1899 holiday camps dorothy cheriton -lrb- 1958 -- 1975 -rrb- sheila devine -lrb- 1975 cheriton -- 1980 -rrb- -lrb- 1925 -- 1958 -rrb- norah faith william_butlin_signature . png billy butlin1.jpg billy butlin
 william heygate edmund colborne butlin butlins
billy butlin

sir william heygate edmund colborne `` billy '' butlin -lrb- 29 september 1899 -- 12 june 1980 -rrb- was a british , south africa-born entrepreneur whose name is synonymous with the british holiday camp .
although holiday camps such as warner 's existed in one form or another before butlin opened his first in 1936 , it was butlin who turned holiday camps into a multi-million pound industry and an important aspect of british culture .
born in cape town , south africa , to william and bertha butlin , butlin had a turbulent childhood .
his parents separated before he was seven , and he returned to england with his mother .
he spent the next five years following his grandmother 's family fair around the country where his mother sold gingerbread ; exposing the young butlin to the skills of commerce and entertainment .
when he was twelve his mother emigrated to canada , leaving him in the care of his aunt for two years .
once settled in toronto , his mother invited him to join her there .
in canada butlin struggled to fit in at school and soon left for a job in a toronto department store eatons .
in wwi he enlisted as a bugler in the canadian army .
after the war , butlin returned to england , bringing only # 5 with him .
investing # 4 of that money to hire a stall travelling with his uncle 's fair , butlin discovered that giving his customers a better chance to win brought more custom in , and he quickly became successful .
one stall became several , including prominent locations such as olympia in london , and butlin soon was able to purchase other fairground equipment , and started his own travelling fair .
he proved successful in this endeavour as well , and by 1927 he 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 years later .
plans to open a third in filey were cut short by the outbreak of wwii .
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 .
by the time he retired in 1968 , butlin had allowed hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers a self-contained vacation with a variety of entertainment .
