[1] She was the daughter of the abolitionist Sir James and Jane Catherine (born Venn) Stephen.

[1] Her father retired from government work when she was a teenager and she moved again when he became Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University.

[3] Stephen was moved to charitable works in the 1860s and she published The Service of the Poor in 1871[4] after discussing her hypothesis with Florence Nightingale.

She looked after her mother until she died when she co-founded the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants with her cousin, Sara Stephen (other claims exist).

[5] Stephen moved to Cambridge in 1895 where she was able to witness to students at Newnham and Girton College about the beliefs of Quakers.

[1] When Virginia Woolf had a breakdown after her father died in 1904, she recovered at a friend's home and then spent time with her aunt in Cambridge.