A daughter of James Cochran Stevenson, a Liberal Member of Parliament for South Shields, Hilda Stevenson was educated at Notting Hill High School and Girton College, Cambridge, where she took first class honours in the History Tripos.

[1] She was also a member of the Northumberland County Council Education Committee and one of the earliest women magistrates.

She served as president of the Women's National Liberal Federation, 1919–21, continuing to sit on its executive committee for many years.

[4] She herself fought the 1929 general election for the Liberals at Tavistock and had been invited to become the candidate by the local Liberal Association against the wishes of national headquarters, which was apparently unhappy that she was not a supporter of the party leader David Lloyd George.

[3] Hilda Runciman died of heart failure at her home, 73 Portland Place, London, on 28 October 1956, aged 87.