Billy Butlin

Sir William Heygate Edmund Colborne Billy Butlin was a British, South Africaborn entrepreneur whose name is synonymous with the British holiday camp. Although holiday camps such as Warners existed in one form or another before Butlin opened his first in 1936, it was Butlin who turned holiday camps into a multimillionpound industry and an important aspect of British culture.

Butlin was born in the Cape Colony . His father, William Colborne Butlin , was the son of a clergyman his mother, Bertha Cassandra Hill , was a member of a family of travelling showmen. They met at a young age when Berthas parents were working a country fair that William attended and in December 1896 they were married. Their marriage was considered not socially acceptable in Leonard Stanley, Gloucestershire, where they lived, and they emigrated to South Africa. William founded a bicycle shop to try to keep the family, and they had two children, Butlin and his brother Harry John Butlin. When the marriage failed, Butlins mother returned to England with her children and rejoined her own family in Coaley, near Bristol. Within a short time Harry contracted polio, and he died in March 1907. For a time Butlin joined his mother in travelling around the fair circuit

Source: Wikipedia