Sir Frederick William Pontin (24 October 1906 – 30 September 2000) was the founder of

Pontins Pontins is a British company operating holiday parks in the UK, founded in 1946 by Fred Pontin. It was acquired by Britannia Hotels in 2011. Pontins specialises in offering half-board and self-catering holidays featuring entertainment at reso ...

holiday camps and one of the two main entrepreneurs in the British holiday camp business in the 30 years after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, alongside

Billy Butlin Sir William Heygate Edmund Colborne Butlin (29 September 189912 June 1980) was an entrepreneur whose name is synonymous with the British holiday camp.''#refRiverside, American Heritage Dictionary 2004'', p. 135.#refScott2001, Scott 2001, p. 5. ...

. He was born in Highams Park, the son of Frederick William Pontin, an East End cabinet maker, and Elizabeth Marian Tilyard, and attended Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow but left without passing any examinations. He had a successful career in the city's

Stock Exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for ...

before

. During the war, he was involved in helping to establish hostels for construction workers. Based on this experience, he decided to move into the holiday camp business after the war. In 1946, he formed a syndicate to buy an old disused camp at Brean Sands near Burnham-on-Sea,

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

which was the beginnings of the company known as Pontins. He gradually expanded his business to encompass thirty sites including the popular

Southport Southport is a seaside resort, seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It lies on the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, West Lancashire coastal plain and the east coast of the Irish Sea, approximately north of ...

and

Prestatyn Prestatyn (; ) is a seaside town and community in Denbighshire, Wales. Historically a part of Flintshire, it is located on the Irish Sea coast, to the east of Rhyl. Prestatyn has a population of 19,085. Origin of name The name Prestatyn d ...

resorts. In 1960, he bought Farringford House on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

, the former home of

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of ...

which had been turned into a hotel. Pontin kept racehorses in stables near the hotel, one of which, Specify, won the 1971 Grand National. He expanded his holiday business into other parts of Europe, forming Pontinental in 1963 with holiday villages in Spain, Majorca, Sardinia, Ibiza, Greece, Morocco and Yugoslavia. In 1978, Pontins and Pontinental were sold to

Coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

for £56 million and he remained a director for two years, and continued to run hotels, including Farringford. In 1984, he acquired

London Dungeon The London Dungeon is a tourist attraction/ haunted attraction along London's South Bank, England, which recreates various gory and macabre historical events in a gallows humour style. It uses a mixture of live actors, special effects and ...

and opened York Dungeon in 1986. He became Chief Barker of the Variety Club of Great Britain in 1968 and was president for 16 years, raising over £1 million. In the 1976 Queen's Birthday Honours List, he was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

for his services to charity. He married Dorothy, with whom he had a daughter, and subsequently married Joyce Hey in 1999, the year before he died in

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside town in Lancashire, England. It is located on the Irish Sea coast of the Fylde peninsula, approximately north of Liverpool and west of Preston, Lancashire, Preston. It is the main settlement in the Borough of Blackpool ...

, aged 93.

References

1906 births 2000 deaths People from Walthamstow 20th-century English businesspeople Knights Bachelor {{England-business-bio-stub