Dates

• Existence: 29 September 1899 - 12 June 1980

Biography

Sir William Heygate Edmund Colborne Butlin MBE was born on 29 September 1899 in Cape Town, South Africa.

William’s father, William Colborne Butlin was the son of a clergyman and his mother, Bertha Cassandra Hill was a member of the Hill family of showmen from the south west of England. Although their union was frowned upon, the couple married in 1896 and emigrated to South Africa. When William was still a child, his parents split up and his mother returned to England with William and his brother Harry. In England they settled with the Hill family and became involved in their fairground business.

William spent the next five years following his family’s family fair around the country where his mother sold gingerbread. When he was twelve his mother emigrated to Canada, leaving him in the care of his aunt for two years. William eventually moved to Canada, where he enlisted to fight in the First World War with the Canadian Army. Upon release from service, he once again joined the family business in England and travelled widely with his uncle Marshall Hill.

During the interwar years, William, who was becoming an ambitious and shrewd businessman, soon bought a hoopla stall from his uncle Marshall and started to travel it around the fairgrounds. Having achieved success with his stall, William decided to open a permanent stall in Olympia, to complement other amusements around the Bertram Mills Circus. While William’s mother run the Olympia stall, he continued to travel the fairs with the Hills family and expand that side of the business. During the second part of the 1920s he opened several permanent gaming stalls at various popular holiday locations in England and by 1927 he had set up his first amusement park, a modest operation in Skegness containing a hoopla, a slide, a haunted house, and a scenic railway.

In 1928, William obtained an exclusive licence to sell dodgem cars in Europe and two years later he opened his first zoo expanding his entertainment offer at Skegness. By the 1930s, William had built an empire with amusement parks and zoos in Bognor Regis, Littlehampton, Mablethorpe, Hayling Island, Felixstowe, Southsea and on the Isle of Man. He continued to operate his winter fair at Olympia and added the winter fairs at Waverley Hall in Edinburgh and Kelvin Hall in Glasgow and in 1938 he gained the sole contract to supply amusements to the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow.

He opened his first Butlin's camp at Ingoldmells in 1936, which was followed by another one in Clacton-on-Sea built two years later.

During the Second World War, Butlin’s holiday camps were requisition by the War Office to be used as training camps and William agreed to build further sites for the same purpose in return for ownership of the sites after the war. He was also charged with improving morale in Britain’s munitions factories and was tasked with setting up leave centres where soldiers could relax and be entertained.

After the war he continued opening an array of holiday camps and hotels in the UK and other countries such as Ireland and Bahamas.

William carried out a lot of charity work, he was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats and the Variety Club of Great Britain and set up the Bill Butlin Charitable Trust. He also set up a trust to help police officers incapacitated or fatally injured while on line of duty.

Among other honours William was awarded an MBE for his wartime service in 1944 and received a Knighthood for his extensive services to charity in 1964.

William retired in 1969, leaving his business to his son Bobby. He died on 12 June 1980.