In the book Joy of Cooking: All About Breakfast and Brunch is stated that people started having brunch in late 1800s England and it became popular in the US by 1930s. What's the actual origin of brunch and when was it actually "invented"?
The origin of the meal itself is murky. But the word "brunch" was coined by Guy Beringer in 1895 in an article entitled "Brunch: A Plea" in a periodical called Hunter's Weekly. He claimed it as a meal for "Saturday night carousers." http://books.google.com/books?id=l015C5vm1XkC&pg=PA99&dq=brunch+%22Guy+beringer%22#v=onepage&q=brunch%20%22Guy%20beringer%22&f=false
This [article] (http://brunchdc.blogspot.com/2008/08/brunch-historian-history-of-brunch.html) does a pretty good summarizing the history of brunch, quoting primary sources.
To expand on what /u/floggingmolly79 posted, Guy Beringer wrote, "Instead of England’s early Sunday dinner, a postchurch ordeal of heavy meats and savory pies, why not a new meal, served around noon, that starts with tea or coffee, marmalade and other breakfast fixtures before moving along to the heavier fare? By eliminating the need to get up early on Sunday, brunch would make life brighter for Saturday-night carousers."
Brunch appealed to both churchgoers and late-night partiers with end of church service being too late for breakfast but too early for heavy lunch fare and waking up with a hangover being similarly timed.