“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”  

—Saint Augustine 

Maritime Art and the Marine Hospital in Savannah 

William O. Golding was born in Savannah in 1874 and became a self-taught African-American artist.  

Using artistic skills developed late in life, he memorialized an odyssey every bit as eventful at that experienced by Homer’s Odysseus — which became quite an accomplishment for an eight-year-old initially shanghaied on the waterfront of Savannah to serve as a cabin boy on a merchant ship. 

In July 1882, the young William was walking along the wharf in Savannah with his cousin when they passed by a ship named the Wandering Jew. Its captain, William Potter, was standing on deck beside his wife and asked her to select one of the two boys.  

She selected William. It was a fateful choice — for Golding, as well as for art in Savannah. 

Enticed onboard, the young William Golding was given an extended tour of the ship. When the boy finally emerged from below deck, the ship was heading into the Atlantic Ocean. 

He passed the lighthouse on Tybee Island near the mouth of the Savannah River, and so began a near 50-year odyssey that took William around the globe many times; sailing on several dozen vessels of merchant ships, whalers, as well as the yachts serving some of the world’s wealthiest families. 

Almost five-decades later, William Golding returned to live in Savannah. Because of declining health, he became an intermittent patient in Savannah’s U.S. Marine Hospital; built in 1906, the building was fully refurbished to serve as SCAD’s Bradley Hall located at 115 East York Street in the Historic District. 

Our nation’s Marine Hospital System was created to care for the aged and ailing men involved in the seafaring business. The origins of the service can be traced to an act of Congress in 1798, which marked the very first federal health-care law in United States history. Initially, the health care services were supported with a 20-cent per month deduction from the wages of seamen like William. 

Fittingly, over a near 50-year career, William Golding gained his nickname of ‘Deep Sea.’ And while a patient at the U.S. Marine Hospital in Savannah, he had the good fortune to meet Margaret Stiles, the hospital’s recreation director who was also an active member of the Savannah Art Club. 

Stiles encouraged William; and maritime art took root in the soul of the elder Golding. And what is too cool for words: many of the works of art by William O. Golding have survived to this day. 

The Telfair Museum of Art presented an exhibition in 2000 entitled Hard Knocks, Hardship and A Lot of Experience: The Maritime Art of William O. Golding. The exhibition included colored drawings — some in pencil, others in crayon — of the ships and ports based on William’s long personal memories at sea. 

Approximately 60-colored drawings William created between the years 1932 and 1939 while a patient at the Marine Hospital in Savannah have been saved for posterity. Thirty of these unique maritime works can be found in the permanent collection of the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia.