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Born in Saint Columb Minor, Cornwall, England. -
William was born of September 19th 1919 in Cornwall, England. He was raised by his mother and father in a 14th-century house next door to a graveyard. -
He studied at Marlborough Grammar School School, the school his father ran. At the age of 12, William found an outlet in bullying his peers after unsuccessfully trying to write a novel. -
Golding began attending Brasenose College at Oxford in 1930 and spent two years studying science, in order to satisfy his fathers wishes. However, his third year, he switched to the literature program. A range of Goldings poems were Macmillan's Contemporary Poets series. -
In 1935, he graduated from Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a diploma in education. -
From 1935 to 1939, he worked as a writer, actor, and producer with a small theater.
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In 1939 Golding took a position teaching English and philosophy at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury. -
However, in 1940 Golding temporarily abandoned the profession to join the Royal Navy and fight in World War II.He spent the next 5 to 6 years of his life on a boat and met his life long romance. Golding had a seven-month stint in New York where he assisted Lord Cherwell at the Naval Research. During the war, he was assigned to fight battleships, and also fend off submarines and planes. In 1945, after World War II had ended, Golding went back to teaching and writing.
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After trying with publishers 21 times, in the year 1954, Golding succesfully published his most known novel, "Lord of the Flies". -
It was a total hit, and in 1963 Peter Brook made a film adaptation based on the novel. -
"Rites of Passage" won the 1980 Booker McConnell Prize -
In 1983, at the age of 73, Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. -
In 1988 he was knighted by England’s Queen Elizabeth II. -
In 1990 a new film version of the Lord of the Flies was released, bringing the book to the attention of a new generation of readers. -
On June 19, 1993, Golding died of a heart attack in Perranarworthal, Cornwall.