He was the son of the geologist
Samuel Pickworth Woodward, a nephew of the antiquarian
Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward and the geologist
Henry Woodward and brother of the geologist
Horace Bolingbroke Woodward. He was one of the last surviving members of the British Museum Natural History staff which transferred in 1881 from the
British Museum to the
Natural History Museum. During that period Woodward produced the five main volumes of the catalogue and a supplementary volume. In common with his uncle
Henry Woodward, formerly Keeper of Geology in the British Museum, and his brother
Horace Bolingbroke Woodward of the Geological Survey, Woodward had an interest in natural history that extended beyond his work at the Natural History Museum, conducting his own researches into
mollusca, and especially British mollusca. Based on this work the Trustees of the
British Museum published his books on the British species of
Pisidium and the British freshwater mollusca, while his book on the life of mollusca was published just before
World War I. For his work in this field Woodward was elected a Fellow of the
Linnean Society of London and the
Royal Microscopical Society, and he was for some years President of the
Malacological Society of London. He frequently contributed to the
Dictionary of National Biography (DNB). ==Personal life==