William Woolls

Woolls, the nineteenth child of merchant Edward Woolls, was born at Winchester, England and educated at the grammar school, Bishop's Waltham, and at 16 years of age endeavoured unsuccessfully to obtain a cadetship in the British East India Company's service.

A year later he emigrated to Australia, landing in Sydney on 16 April 1832, and was soon appointed an assistant-master at The King's School, Parramatta, having met William Grant Broughton—then Church of England Archdeacon of New South Wales—on the way out.

He was then for a period classical master at Sydney College, but resigned this to open a private school at Parramatta which he conducted for many years.

James Walker, headmaster of The King's School between 1843 and 1848, led to Woolls becoming interested in botany, and he subsequently did much work on the flora of Australia.

Cable, "... Woolls was best known for his promotion of Australian botany and his assistance to other scholars rather than for large-scale systematic work.