Butlin's fun holiday camps, UK 1936-70

I had enjoyed Australian holiday camps every summer throughout high school and university. Wonderful memories and activities!! But 1971 was my first year in Europe and Britain, so I was very keen to visit Butlins for the first time.

In the 1920s, young Billy Butlin (1899-1990) was staying at a Bed & Breakfast in Barry Island, Wales. Everyone knew that guests would be locked out of their accommodation after breakfast and only let back in when the prop­rietor opened the door for tea. But But­lin hated the boredom, and decided to create a new kind of holiday de­st­ination, one where residents wouldn’t be subject to the relentless rain outside. 

Butlin, the son of fairground owners, decided to develop a holiday facility where on-site entertainment would be provided for the guests during the day. Having arrived in Skegness at the height of the foreshore development with his hoopla stall, Butlin went on to build and operate a new amusement park. In fact he opened a perm­an­­ent fair­ground and zoo in Skegness in 1927, becoming the first Brit to franchise American Dodgems bumper cars and import them into Brit­ain.

Rail poster to Butlin's Clacton On Seat holiday camp

Following his success in developing amusement parks, and based on what Butlin learned in Canadian family holidays, he decided to move on to camps. The first Butlin’s Holiday Camp, close to Skeg­ness, was officially opened in 1936 by Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. On the opening night, an eng­ineer was asked to entertain the guests with a comedy rout­ine. The guests loved it, and thus the Butlin’s Redcoat was born. The red­coat’s duty was to keep the guests amused! Skegness camp soon incl­uded exciting facilities eg dance halls and sports fields.

In a year Skeg­ness had doubled in size, so Billy Butlin soon chose Clacton-on-Sea for his next camp. In 1938, Dovercourt Camp was built but it was taken over by the gov­ern­­ment to house the Jewish children who fled from Nazi Eastern Europe to Britain as part of the Kinder­trans­port Train.

Construct­ion of the Filey Holiday Camp in Yorkshire began in 1939. Again, with the outbreak of WW2, building at Filey was completed by the Army. Sim­ilarly the camps at Skeg­ness and Clacton were hand­ed over as training camps for troops. Butlin built the gov­ern­­ment more camps, trusting that they would be returned to him after the war’s end.

Dining hall at Filey Camp (above)

Vienna Ballroom at Filey Camp (below)

In 1945, with the war over, Filey was re-opened as a holiday camp. The camps at Skegness and Clacton re-opened in 1946, Ayr and Pwllheli in 1947 and Mosney on the Irish coast in 1948. In 1948 Billy Butlin acquired two hotels in the Bahamas, and in the 1950s Butlins began opening hotels at home: Saltdean, Brighton (1953), Blackpool (1955) and five in Cliftonville (1955–6).

Butlins ensured that family entertain­ment and activities were available for the equivalent of a week's pay. His empire grew when he opened camps in Ayr in Scot­land, Saltdean in Essex, Blackpool and Clifton­ville Kent. New sites opened in the 1960s in Bognor Regis in Sus­s­ex, Mine­head in Somerset and, appropriately, Barry Is­land in Wales! Butlin’s Holiday Camps had become an icon of British holidaymaking. He received his knighthood in 1964.

Then the camping world changed. As Brits fell in love with holid­aying abroad, the special quality of the British seaside and the att­ractiveness of basic holiday camps faded. Cheap air flights and package holidays provided strong comp­et­it­ion to Butlin in the 1970s. And Mediterranean resorts had much better weather and more exotic food!

His numbers went down, but his camps remained open for business anyhow, seeking continuous development. The famous mono-rails were built in Skegness & Minehead, chair lifts became popular, and heated indoor pools with underwater windows and revolv­ing bars were loved! The number of camps peaked at ten in the late 1960s-early 70s.

Chalets at Butlins Skegness, used by navy recruits during WW2

Royal Arthur

In 1968 Billy's son Bobby Butlin took over the management of But­l­ins, and in 1972 the business was sold to the Rank Organisation for £43 million. It also had a specific image problem of being seen as providing regimented holidays, suitable only for the working class!

Ayr and Skegness gained separate self-contained hotels within their grounds, hotels that were refined enough. In later years, they were joined by further hotels in Scarborough (1978), London (1993) and elsewhere. In the 1960s and 1970s, the company also operated the Top of the Tower revolving restaurant in London.

The Skegness Esplanade and Tower Gardens Lincs, where Billy Butlin opened his first holiday camp in 1936, is the first Butlins holiday camp named as a Grade II Listed site.

 

Redcoats dancing with women campers at Skegness
Daily Mail

Colin Ward’s book Goodnight Campers: The History of the British Holiday Camp 2010 records the development of the British holiday camp from the pioneer camps during the 1930s and 1940s… to the golden years of the Pontin, Butlin and Warner camps of the 1950s and 1960s. Commercial mot­ives for the Butlin camps were important, but so were ed­uc­ational ideals, trade unions and welfare consid­er­ations, cult of the outdoor life and political utopianism. Butlin’s grand vision had been to provide good value holidays to Britain’s hard working population – and he did. These were the great years when holiday camps off­ered freedom, health, family fun and possible sex.