Sir William Golding 1911 -1993 William Golding

Sir William Golding (1911 -1993)

William Golding was born in Cornwall, England in 1911. He grew up at his family home in Marlborough, Wiltshire where his father (Alec Golding) was a science master at Marlborough grammar school. William attended the famous private school, and then went to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he study science. After graduating from Oxford in 1935 he started a career in teaching.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Golding joined the Royal Navy and was involved in active service throughout the war. The effects of the war on Golding were enormous and helped to create his pessimistic view of human nature. In 1945, after World War II had ended, Golding went back to teaching and writing. • Golding is on the right

After the war he returned to teaching, a career that he continued even after achieving fame as a writer. His first and the most famous novel “Lord of the Flies” was published in 1954 and was accepted as an immediate critical success. The novel told the gripping story of a group of adolescent boys stranded on a deserted island after a plane wreck. Since its publication, the novel has been widely regarded as a classic, worthy of in-depth analysis and discussion in classrooms around the world.

William Golding also wrote “Pincher Martin” in 1955, which was followed by “Free Fall” and then “The Spire” in 1964. There was a pause in Golding’s literary production, and then in 1980 he published “Rites of Passage”, which won the Booker Prize. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In 1985, Golding and his wife moved to Tullimaar House at Perranarworthal, near Truro, Cornwall, where he died of heart failure, eight years later, on 19 June 1993. He was buried in the village churchyard at Bowerchalke, South Wiltshire (near the Hampshire and Dorset county boundaries). He left the draft of a novel, The Double Tongue, set in ancient Delphi, which was published posthumously. He is survived by his daughter, the author Judy Golding, and his son David, who still lives at Tullimaar House.

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