The origin of pinyin
Sure.
We don't have pinyin(the one used today) until the foundation of PRC. The creator of Pinyin is this man, zhoyouguang (wiki)
In my point of view, pinyin has little to do with English. So don't mess them up. Pinyin has its own pronunciation, its own combination rules. The practice of Pinyin is to, reduce the illiteracy of Chinese people, to better facilitate people's needs (say, type Chinese chars in QWERTY keyboard).
One thing to note is, other than pinyin, there is also a widely used kanji notation, namely zhuyin. It is also designed in the 20th century, and remains its popularity in Taiwan.