British engineer who pioneered in the development of the compound steam engine.

Woolf began as a carpenter and then worked for the engineer and inventor Joseph Bramah. As engineer for a London brewery, he began experimenting with steam power and patented the Woolf high-pressure compound engine in 1804 and 1805. Its thermal efficiency was 7.5 percent, almost twice that of James Watt's expansion engine. In 1810, after Watt's patent expired, Woolf revived and improved Jonathan Hornblower's compound engine of 1781. He returned to Cornwall in 1812 to introduce his engine for pumping mines. It was widely used until it was superseded in the next decade by Richard Trevithick's more efficient high-pressure engine.