Woolley, John
John Woolley was born in Peterfield, Hampshire, England, the second son of George Woolley, physician, and his wife Charlotte. After preliminary education at the Western Grammar School, Brompton, John enrolled at the new University College of London in 1830, and remained there for two years, studying Logic and Classics. In 1832, at the age of 16, he won a scholarship to Exeter College Oxford, and in Easter 1836 took a First in Literae Humaniores, followed by an M.A. in 1839. In 1840 he was awarded a Stowell graduate scholarship to University College, and later that year was elected to a fellowship at the same college. In 1841 Woolley was ordained as a priest by Bishop Musgrave of Hereford, and the following year went to Germany where he married Mary, daughter of Major William Turner of the 17th Light Dragoons, resigning his fellowship as a consequence.
Woolley now embarked on a schoolmaster's career, his first appointment being as headmaster of the Free Grammar School at Hereford, in 1842. His next post was as headmaster of Rossall School, Lancashire, where he remained from 1844 until 1849. In 1849, with the support of Bishop Stanley of Norwich, he secured the post of headmaster of Norwich Grammar School, but he remained there only until 1851. In that year he was appointed as Principal and Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney, taking up his duties in July 1852 as Australia's first professor.
Although recognised as a dedicated teacher and an inspiring lecturer Woolley's Arnoldian attitude to the proper role of the Church in education and society, and his religious liberalism served to keep him isolated from Sydney society. However, his influence on some of the prominent members of the younger generation, such as Henry Parkes and William Windeyer, was profound. Woolley was an active Freemason, acting as Chaplain to the English and Scottish lodges, and he was a member of the committees of the New South Wales Auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the New South Wales Religious Tract and Book Society. In addition he was elected a trustee of the Australian Museum and a councillor of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales.
In late 1864 Woolley, laden with a sense of failure, took some leave from the University and left for England without his family on 26 December, aboard the HMS Miranda. He visited friends and relatives and seems to have been trying to get himself an academic post in England, no offers of which were forthcoming. He sailed for Australia on the London but in a severe storm in the Bay of Biscay the ship foundered and he was drowned. A public meeting in Sydney on 26 March 1866 raised two thousand pounds to provide for Woolley's widow and family of four girls and two boys. He is commemorated by the Woolley scholarship.
John Woolley: Australia's First Professor. KJ Cable. Arts (Sydney). 1968. Pages 47-66. John Woolley. Australian Dictionary of Biography. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/woolley-john-4885 (Accessed on 06/12/2021.)