Violet was born into a well-known Clifton Hill family in 1900, lived in Gold Street, Clifton Hill for over 30 years, became a noted violinist, graduated as Bachelor of Music, and then taught music both at the Conservatorium and at the family home before making a surprising career change in her thirties. 

Violet’s father was Frederick Woolcock, son of butchering magnate John Woolcock who had moved his family from Collingwood to 211 Gold Street, Clifton Hill around 1886. Frederick married Abbotsford resident Robena Black in 1894; his parents moved to North Terrace, while the young couple remained in residence at 211 Gold Street, a substantial house facing the lovely Darling Gardens. The union produced six children of whom Violet was the third eldest (a third daughter Doris died at the age of two). In 1907 Violet’s wealthy grandfather purchased Marysville, the neighbouring house at 217 Gold Street, and around 1911 Frederick and family moved next door. 

Violet attended the local Westleigh School run by the Misses Westgarth, where she obtained prizes in 1906. As Westleigh moved to Northcote in 1911, Violet may have undertaken the latter years of her primary schooling at Gold Street state school, where we know her younger sister Phyllis was a pupil. From 1913 Violet attended Presbyterian Ladies College (then located in East Melbourne) along with her older sister Marjorie, but did she learn the violin there, or might she have been a pupil of the well-known violin teacher Otto Rohlk at the Clifton Hill School of Music in Queen’s Parade? Violet would have met Aileen Estcourt, a pianist who later took over the music school, probably during childhood when at least one of her Clifton Hill cousins was taught by Aileen, and certainly at the Conservatorium where both the young women were to study. Violet, Marjorie, and younger sister Phyllis who enrolled at PLC in 1917 all participated in school musical presentations.

Violet entered the University Conservatorium as an Ormond Exhibitioner in 1917, and excelled in her work, regaining the Ormond Exhibitions scholarship for every year of her studies, including the third year of the degree course for which there was only one Ormond Exhibition offered. At the end of her first year of the Diploma of Music she obtained equal first place; the following year she undertook the first year of the degree course, again gaining equal first place.  She also won the Wright Prize for instrumental music. In her third year she was first in the class. 

Student concerts were reported on at some length by the music critics of The Age and The Argus, not always kindly, so any praise given to Violet can be taken as well-merited. For example, at a concert in December 1919 ‘Miss Violet Woolcock showed much brilliance in her treatment of Wieniawski's Souvenir de Moscow; her harmonies were exceptionally good’ while a 1920 concert in the Melbourne Town Hall earned this comment from the critic: ‘Miss Violet Woolcock gave one of the best things of the evening with her performance of the first movement of Beethoven's violin concerto’. 

Violet, while a member of the Conservatorium String Quartet and acting deputy leader of the Conservatorium Orchestra, did not neglect the social aspects of university life. Throughout her course she was keenly interested in the success of the Ormond Club, the Conservatorium students' social club, and was president of the club for the last two years of her studies. 

Violet completed her course in 1920, under the direction of Mr Gustave Walther, and was awarded her degree of Bachelor of Music at the Annual Commencement in April 1921, the first violinist at the Conservatorium to take out that degree. She was then appointed chief and second study teacher of violin at the Conservatorium. She also taught violin at her old school, Presbyterian Ladies College, as well as taking pupils at her home, 217 Gold Street, which the Woolcocks had renamed Avondale.

A new string quartette called The University Associates' Quartette was formed in 1926 by ‘four ambitious past students of the University Conservatorium with Violet as the enterprising leader’, and gave their first performance at Melba Hall on 27 August, ‘the programme including an excellent rendering of Haydn's string quartette in F Major and Beethoven's G Major.’ 

In 1927 Violet featured in musical programs on radio station 3AR. She and pianist sister Marjorie performed together at events put on by organisations such as the PLC Old Collegians Club and the Victorian Women Graduates Association. 

The early 1930s saw big changes for the family, which still incorporated four unmarried adult children: Marjorie, Violet and Phyllis, and their younger brother Frederick. They and their parents moved from Gold Street to Box Hill North, then known as Mont Albert. By this time Violet had made what at first glance seems a very surprising decision to return to university studies in a completely different area: zoology. On the other hand, the number and type of her public appearances perhaps make it obvious that she would not be able to make a living as a violinist. In her new field of endeavour she once again excelled, and was awarded a Howitt Natural History scholarship and a Macbain Research Scholarship in 1933. She was awarded Master of Science in April 1935. After graduation she was appointed biology teacher at Scotch College, commencing on 1 February 1936, and soon became senior biology teacher. She had not forgotten her first love. She gave violin performances at the school directed the orchestra at school concerts, and was wardrobe mistress for the Dramatic Society, spending many hours designing and making costumes for Scotch plays. She also continued to play from time to time at charitable fund-raising events unconnected with the school.

Up to this point, what do we know of Violet as a person? Her activities show a clever, talented and hardworking young woman, while a gregarious personality seems indicated given her participation in social groups. But thanks to the author of A deepening roar who collected reminiscences of Scotch Old Boys who attended Scotch in the 1940s and 1950s, we can gain greater insight into her warm and humorous personality. 'In an era when open discussion on sexual matters was rare, she brought a very sensible and informative atmosphere into the classroom - demystifying the subject lucidly yet directly'. She was 'the only woman teacher in the Senior School and regarded by the male teachers as rather intrusive. But her own strong and warm personality, her great sense of humour, the gender difference and the subject matter all lent themselves to the breaking down of many stereotyped attitudes, traditional barriers and taboos'.  Many Old Boys mention her with affection, as their only source of knowledge. Others chafed at her 'circling the perimeter of hard information'; she dispensed 'very clinical and biologically accurate information ... but that seemed to be confined to frogs, dogfish and rabbits and [had] very little relation to the complexity of human activities.'

Violet’s life came to an abrupt end in 1960. In May, while still a teacher at Scotch, she suffered a burst cerebral aneurysm which caused subarachnoid haemorrhage, and was admitted to Epworth Hospital where she died on 1 June. Her will left everything to her sisters Marjorie and Phyllis; a poignant item in her probate list of assets is 'violin and bow, £30'.

Trove list: https://trove.nla.gov.au/list/197823

Reid, M O, The ladies came to stay: a study of the education of girls at the Presbyterian Ladies' College Melbourne 1875-1960

Scotch College archives

PLC archives

Mitchell, James, A deepening roar: Scotch College, Melbourne, 1851 - 2001, Crows Nest, NSW, Allen & Unwin, 2001.