John Laskey Woolcock was born on 7 November 1861 at Cornwall, England. The family migrated to Australia, reaching Brisbane in 1866. Woolcock studied law with working as private secretary to premier Samuel Griffith. He was parliamentary counsel from 1899 to 1927.Woolcock played a key role in the establishment of the University of Queensland. Many scholars of the newly formed University of Queensland took advantage of his well-stocked library. Woolcock served on the first University Senate from 1910 to 1916. He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court on 1 February. He died of 18 January 1929. Ida Woolcock, his widow, allowed the University of Queensland Library to select 1,000 books from his library which is now housed as a separate collection in the University of Queensland Library, as part of the Fryer Library's collections.