Sir Leslie Stephen KCB FBA
Stephenc. 1860
Born	(1832-11-28)28 November 1832 Kensington Gore,London, England
Died	22 February 1904(1904-02-22) (aged 71) Kensington, London, England
Education	Eton College
Alma mater	King's College, London Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Spouses	Harriet Thackeray (1867–1875) Julia Jackson (1878–1895)
Children	5,see list Laura (1870–1945) Vanessa (1879–1961) Thoby (1880–1906) Virginia (1882–1941) Adrian (1883–1948)
Parents	Sir James Stephen (1789–1859) Jane Venn (1793–1875)
Relatives	See list James Stephen (grandfather) Albert Venn Dicey (cousin) John Venn (cousin) Julian Bell (grandson) Quentin Bell (grandson) Angelica Garnett (granddaughter)

Sir Leslie StephenKCB FBA (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic,historian,biographer,mountaineer, and anEthical movement activist. He was also the father ofVirginia Woolf andVanessa Bell and the founder of England'sDictionary of National Biography.

Sir Leslie Stephen came from a distinguished intellectual family,^[1] and was born at a house onKensington Gore, later 42Hyde Park Gate, in London, the son ofSir James Stephen and his wife, Jane Catherine (née Venn).^[2] His father was Colonial Undersecretary of State and a notedabolitionist.^[3] He was the fourth of five children, his siblings includingJames Fitzjames Stephen (1829–1894) andCaroline Emelia Stephen (1834–1909).^[2]

His family had belonged to theClapham Sect, the early 19th-century group of mainlyevangelical Christiansocial reformers. At his father's house, he saw a good deal of theMacaulays,James Spedding, SirHenry Taylor andNassau Senior. Leslie Stephen was educated atEton College,King's College London andTrinity Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. (20thwrangler) in 1854 and M.A. in 1857. He was elected afellow of Trinity Hall in 1854 and became a junior tutor in 1856.^[4]

In 1859, he wasordained, but his study of philosophy, together with his perception of the religious controversies surrounding the publication ofOn the Origin of Species (1859) byCharles Darwin, led to his losing his faith in 1862, and in 1864 he resigned from his positions at Cambridge, and moved to London. He recounted some of his experiences in a chapter in hisLife of Fawcett as well as in some less formalSketches from Cambridge: By a Don (1865). These sketches were reprinted fromThe Pall Mall Gazette, to the proprietor of which,George Murray Smith, he had been introduced by his brother.^[1]

The family connections included that ofWilliam Makepeace Thackeray. His brother, Fitzjames had been a friend of Thackeray's and assisted in the disposition of his estate when he died in 1863. His sister Caroline met Thackeray's daughters,Anny (1837–1919) andMinny (1840–1875) when they were mutual guests ofJulia Margaret Cameron (of whom, see later). This led to an invitation to visit from Leslie Stephen's mother, Lady Stephen, where the sisters met him. They also met at George Murray Smith's house at Hampstead. Minny and Leslie became engaged on 4 December 1866 and married on 19 June 1867.

After the wedding, they travelled to theSwiss Alps andNorthern Italy, and on return to England lived at the Thackeray sisters' home at 16 Onslow Gardens with Anny, who was a novelist. In the spring of 1868 Minnymiscarried but recovered sufficiently for the couple to tour the eastern United States. Minny miscarried again in 1869, but became pregnant again in 1870 and on 7 December gave birth to their daughter, Laura Makepeace Stephen (1870–1945). Laura was premature, weighing three pounds. In March 1873, Thackeray and the Stephens moved to 8 Southwell Gardens.^[5] The couple travelled extensively, and by the summer of 1875, Minny was pregnant again, but this time in poor health. She went to theAlps and came back slightly better, but got back pains by October–November. On the evening of 27 November, she went to bed, fell into convulsions, and died the following day ofeclampsia.^[6]

After Minny's death, Leslie Stephen continued to live with Anny, but they moved to 11 Hyde Park Gate South in 1876, next door to her widowed friend and collaborator, Julia Duckworth. Leslie Stephen and his daughter were also cared for by his sister, the writerCaroline Emelia Stephen, although Leslie described her as "Silly Milly" and her books as "little works".^[7][8][9] Meanwhile, Anny was falling in love with her younger cousinRichmond Ritchie, to Leslie Stephen's consternation. Ritchie became a constant visitor and they became engaged in May 1877 and were married on 2 August. At the same time, Leslie Stephen was seeing more and more of Julia Duckworth.

His second marriage was toJulia Prinsep Duckworth (née Jackson, 1846–1895). Julia had been born in India and after returning to England she became a model forPre-Raphaelite painters such asEdward Burne-Jones.^[10] In 1867, she had married Herbert Duckworth (1833 − 1870) by whom she had three children prior to his death in 1870.

Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth were married on 26 March 1878. They had four children:

• Vanessa (1879–1961), who marriedClive Bell
• Thoby (1880–1906)
• Virginia (1882–1941), who marriedLeonard Woolf
• Adrian (1883–1948)

In May 1895, Julia died of influenza, leaving her husband with four young children aged 11 to 15 (her children by her first marriage being adults by then).^[11]

In the 1850s, Stephen and his brother James were invited byFrederick Denison Maurice to lecture atThe Working Men's College. Leslie Stephen became a member of the college's governing College Corporation.^[12]

Stephen was anhonorary fellow ofTrinity Hall, Cambridge, and received the honorary degreeDoctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from theUniversity of Cambridge and from theUniversity of Oxford (November 1901^[13]).While at Cambridge, Stephen became anAnglican clergyman. In 1865, having renounced his religious beliefs, and after a visit to the United States two years earlier, where he had formed lasting friendships withOliver Wendell Holmes Jr.,James Russell Lowell andCharles Eliot Norton, he settled in London and became a journalist, eventually editingThe Cornhill Magazine in 1871 whereR. L. Stevenson,Thomas Hardy,W. E. Norris,Henry James, andJames Payn figured among his contributors.

In his spare time, he participated in athletics andmountaineering. He also contributed to theSaturday Review,Fraser,Macmillan, theFortnightly, and other periodicals. He was already known as a climber, as a contributor toPeaks, Passes and Glaciers (1862), and as one of the earliest presidents of theAlpine Club, when, in 1871, in commemoration of his ownfirst ascents in theAlps, he publishedThe Playground of Europe, which immediately became a mountaineering classic, drawing—together withWhymper'sScrambles Amongst the Alps — successive generations of its readers to the Alps.

During the eleven years of his editorship, in addition to three volumes of critical studies, he made two valuable contributions to philosophical history and theory. The first wasThe History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876 and 1881). This work was generally recognised as an important addition to philosophical literature and led immediately to Stephen's election at theAthenaeum Club in 1877. The second wasThe Science of Ethics (1882). It was extensively adopted as a textbook on the subject and made him the best-known proponent ofevolutionary ethics in late-nineteenth-century Britain. He was elected a member of theAmerican Antiquarian Society in 1901.^[14]

Leslie Stephen also served as the first editor (1885–91) of theDictionary of National Biography. He was appointed a Knight Commander of theOrder of the Bath (KCB) in the1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902.^[15][16]

As an adult, Stephen was anagnostic atheist who wrote extensively about his views. InSocial Rights and Duties (1896), he explained how he came to lose his faith of his parents: "When I ceased to accept the teaching of my youth, it was not so much a process of giving up beliefs as of discovering that I never really believed."^[17] His second wife, Julia, was similarly activist in her writings on agnosticism.

He advocated for more people of this view to claim the label "agnostic" for themselves, eschewing the harder associations of the unadorned term "atheist", reflecting the fact that no one who claims disbelief in gods does so on the basis of professing absoluteknowledge about the universe. He concluded his essay "An Agnostic's Apology" with a reply to religious critics who hold atheists and agnostics in contempt:

"Til then, we shall be content to admit openly what you whisper under your breath or hide in technical jargon, that the ancient secret is secret still; that man knows nothing of the Infinite and Absolute; and that, knowing nothing, he had better not be dogmatic about his ignorance. And, meanwhile, we will endeavour to be as charitable as possible, and whilst you trumpet forth officially your contempt for our skepticism, we will at least try to believe that you are imposed upon by your own bluster."

Stephen was very involved in the organisedEthical movement. He served multiple terms as President of the West London Ethical Society (part of the Union of Ethical Societies).^[19] He gave numerous addresses and lectures to the ethical society during his tenure as president, which are collected at length across multiple volumes of writings. He was an active organiser in the movement, and in one lecture, entitled "The aims of ethical societies", set about the task of defining the broader social purpose which animated the widerEthical movement at that time.^[20]

Stephen was one of the most prominent figures in thegolden age of alpinism (the period betweenWills's ascent of theWetterhorn in 1854 andWhymper's ascent of theMatterhorn in 1865) during which many major alpine peaks saw their first ascents. Joining theAlpine Club in 1857 (the year of its formation), Stephen made the first ascent, usually in the company of his favourite Swiss guideMelchior Anderegg, of the following peaks:

• Wildstrubel – 11 September 1858 withT. W. Hinchliff and Melchior Anderegg
• Bietschhorn – 13 August 1859 with Anton Siegen, Johann Siegen and Joseph Ebener
• Rimpfischhorn – 9 September 1859 with Robert Living, Melchior Anderegg and Johann Zumtaugwald
• Alphubel – 9 August 1860 with T. W. Hinchliff, Melchior Anderegg and Peter Perren
• Blüemlisalphorn – 27 August 1860 with Robert Living, Melchior Anderegg, F. Ogi, P. Simond and J. K. Stone
• Schreckhorn – 16 August 1861 with Ulrich Kaufmann, Christian Michel and Peter Michel
• Jungfraujoch – July 1862 withH. B. George,Henry Morgan, F. J. Hardy, Living, and Moore.
• Monte Disgrazia – 23 August 1862 withE. S. Kennedy, Thomas Cox and Melchior Anderegg
• Zinalrothorn – 22 August 1864 withFlorence Crauford Grove, Jakob Anderegg and Melchior Anderegg
• Mont Mallet – 4 September 1871 with G. Loppe, F. A. Wallroth, Melchior Anderegg, Ch. and A. Tournier

He was President of the Alpine Club from 1865 to 1868 and edited theAlpine Journal, 1868–1872.

He died inKensington and is buried in the eastern section ofHighgate Cemetery in the raised section alongside the northern path. His daughter, Virginia Woolf, was badly affected by his death and she was cared for by his sister, Caroline.^[7] Woolf in 1927 created a detailed psychological portrait of him in the fictional character of Mr. Ramsay in her classic novel,To the Lighthouse, (as well as of her mother as Mrs. Ramsay). (Ref: The Diaries and Letters of Virginia Woolf) Hisprobate is worded: STEPHEN sir Leslie of 22 Hyde Park-gate Middlesex K.C.B. probate London 23 March to George Herbert Duckworth and Gerald de L'Etang Duckworth esquires Effects £15715 6s. 6d.^[22]

To honour his memory, his friends held a lecture in 1907 at theUniversity of Cambridge, which has been held bi-annually as theLeslie Stephen Lecture since. His friends endowed that it be held with the specification that it be on "some literary subject, including therein criticism, biography and ethics."^[23]

Forfamily trees of the Stephens, Thackerays and Jacksons, see Bicknell (1996a)^[24] and Bloom and Maynard (1994).^[25]

• Works by Leslie Stephen atProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Leslie Stephen at theInternet Archive
• Works by Leslie Stephen atLibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century atInternet Archive.
• Obituary
• Leslie Stephen Photograph Album,Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections

• Leslie and Harriet Stephen 1867, inKukil (2011)
• Julia Prinsep Jackson, c.1856, inKukil (2011)

• 1832 births
• 1904 deaths
• English mountain climbers
• Editors of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• People educated at Eton College
• Stephen–Bell family
• English agnostics
• 19th-century English essayists
• English women essayists
• English humanists
• 19th-century English historians
• Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
• Presidents of the Alpine Club (UK)
• Alumni of King's College London
• 20th-century English biographers
• Fellows of the British Academy
• 19th-century English writers
• Burials at Highgate Cemetery
• English women biographers
• 20th-century English historians
• People from Westminster

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use British English from August 2014
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Use dmy dates from July 2024
• Articles with hCards
• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB
• Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata
• Articles with Project Gutenberg links
• Articles with Internet Archive links
• Articles with LibriVox links