Stephen was educated at Clifton College,[1] after failing to gain a place at Eton.

However, this did not hold him back, since he won an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge,[2] from Clifton.

Stephen is credited with starting the Bloomsbury Group's Thursday evening gatherings.

[3] He was expected to distinguish himself, but he contracted typhoid at the age of 26 while on holiday in Greece, and died shortly after he was brought back to England.

Virginia Woolf's 1931 novel The Waves is considered by some critics to make significant reference to Thoby Stephen.