Golding, William

The English author William Golding was born at St. Columb Minor, Cornwall. His father was a teacher, a political radical and interested in natural science; his mother was active in the women's suffrage movement. William was first educated at Marlborough Grammar School, which was where his father taught, and he later went on to read natural sciences at Brasenose College, Oxford. After two years he changed his mind and switched to English literature, graduating in 1934. He taught until 1937 when he began teachers' college. In 1939, when Golding was teaching at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, he married Ann Brookfield. The couple has one child. He served in the Navy in the war and took part in the D-Day landing at Normandy. After the war he continued to teach until 1961 when he was able to make a living from writing. Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1988 and was knighted the same year. He and his wife returned to Cornwall in 1985.