The Reverend Joseph Woolley MA LLD FRAS (1817-1889) was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a founding member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects.
He was the third son of George Woolley, a local surgeon, and later employee of the Royal Humane Society and his wife Charlotte.
Woolley was educated at Brompton Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge in 1835.
Its predecessor, the School of Naval Architecture, led by Professor James Inman, another Cambridge graduate, had closed in the 1830s.
'[3] In 1864, Woolley became the first principal of the Royal School of Naval Architecture.