Goodall was one of the most prominent and well regarded engravers in the first half of the 1800s. He became one of JMW Turner’s first choices when he needed engravers to copy his works for mass production, and was used too by other especially popular draughtsmen and artists of the day such as Peter de Wint and Clarkson Stanfield.

Goodall was from Leeds but moved to London as a teenager to become an apprentice steel engraver. Later in his career, and as a particularly renowned engraver, he was able to move in higher artistic circles than was common for engravers, and his son Frederick became a prominent painter.