Alfred Cooper Woolner was born in 1878 in Etruria Hall, Staffordshire in England.  In 1897 he won two scholarships to Trinity College, Oxford, where he studied Classics as well as Sanskrit and Persian.  In 1901, he won the Boden scholarship in Sanskrit.  After taking a distinguished degree in Sanskrit and Pāli, he started to learn Chinese. 

These studies were interrupted in 1903 when he left for India to take up a post as Principal of the Oriental College, Lahore, and Registrar of the University of the Punjab.  His connection with the College remained unbroken until his death from pneumonia in 1936.  Woolner was buried in Lahore's Gora Kabristan cemetery.