Caroline Emelia Stephen (8 December 1834 – 7 April 1909), also known as Milly Stephen, was a British philanthropist and a writer on Quakerism. Her niece was

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

Life

Stephen was born on 8 December 1834 at Kensington Gore on

Hyde Park Gate Hyde Park Gate is a street in Central London, England, which applies to two parallel roads in Kensington on the southern boundary of Kensington Gardens. These two roads run south, perpendicular to Kensington Road, but the name Hyde Park Gate als ...

in London. She was the daughter of the

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

Sir

James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguati ...

and Jane Catherine (born Venn) Stephen. Her father was the permanent under-secretary for the colonies. Her brothers were the jurist Sir

James Fitzjames Stephen Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 1st Baronet, KCSI (3 March 1829 – 11 March 1894) was an English lawyer, judge, writer, and philosopher. One of the most famous critics of John Stuart Mill, Stephen achieved prominence as a philosopher, law ...

and Sir

Leslie Stephen Sir Leslie Stephen (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, and mountaineer, and the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Life Sir Leslie Stephen came from a distinguished intellect ...

(1832–1904) who was the first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography.A.G.L. Shaw, "Stephen, Sir James (1789–1859)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 10 December 2015
/ref> She was educated by governesses in a literary and religious home. Her home moved from London to Brighton and back to Windsor and then Wimbledon. Her father retired from government work when she was a teenager and she moved again when he became a (mostly honorary) Regis history professor at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

. Stephen is said to have had a love affair that ended badly in 1857. According to her brother, Leslie, her lover left and died in India. However despite Leslie's expertise as a biographer there does not appear to be any corroboration for this account.Caroline Stephen and her niece, Virginia Woolf
Alison M. Lewis, ''Journal of the fellowship of the Quakers in the Arts'', Issue 21, Spring 2001. Retrieved 10 December 2015.

Good works and becoming a Quaker

Stephen was moved to charitable works in the 1860s and she published
The Service of the Poor
in 1871 after discussing her hypothesis with

Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, i ...

. She also began discussions of faith with Robert Were Fox. She decided to become a Quaker and she left behind her parents' evangelical Christianity. 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). In 1877, she arranged for a building for women to live in Chelsea. This was Hereford Buildings and it was located on what would become

Old Church Street Old Church Street is a street in London, England in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelseabr> It runs from Chelsea Embankment to Fulham Road, crossing Kings Road. The section to the north of Kings Road is sometimes called Upper Old Church S ...

. In 1879 she had joined the Quakers and she had become a strong supporter of their views. In 1890 she published ''Quaker Strongholds'' which set forth her point of view and was well received as a "Quaker classic" even 100 years after publication. This is despite her brother's description of the book as "another little work of hers". Virginia Woolf grew up with her father calling his sister "Silly Milly" or "The Nun". Her book made her the most well known female Quaker amongst those who read books. She was an anti-suffragist as she considered that the silent majority of women did not want a change to the status quo. Her point of view became slightly more popular after her death as the more militant suffragettes made it difficult for non-violent Quakers to support the popular feminist point of view.

Cambridge

Stephen moved to Cambridge in 1895 where she was able to witness to students at Newnham and

Girton College Girton College is one of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge, 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1 ...

about the beliefs of Quakers. She was assisted at Newnham by her niece,

Katharine Stephen Katharine Stephen (26 February 1856 – 16 June 1924) was a librarian and later principal of Newnham College at Cambridge University. Early life and family Katharine Stephen was born in London on 26 February 1856, the daughter of Mary Richend ...

, who was the principal of Newnham College.Margaret M. Jensen, "Stephen, Caroline Emelia (1834–1909)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 201
accessed 10 Dec 2015
/ref> 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. Stephen died at her home in Cambridge on 7 April 1909. She left a bequest of £2,500 to her niece Virginia Woolf. This money was credited by her niece as pivotal to her career, as it freed Woolf to be able to concentrate on thinking; the money, she said, "unveiled the sky to me"''

A Room of One's Own ''A Room of One's Own'' is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf, first published in September 1929. The work is based on two lectures Woolf delivered in October 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, women's colleges at the University of C ...

''
Chapter Two
, Virginia Woolf, Retrieved 10 December 2015 (see ''

''). In 1911 Katharine Stephen published ''The Vision of Faith and other Essays'' which contained Caroline Stephen's writing.

References

External links

Works by Caroline Emelia Stephen
at

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital libr ...

Quaker Strongholds
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stephen, Caroline Emelia 1834 births 1909 deaths People from Kensington Quaker writers English Quakers 19th-century Quakers Writers from London