Julia Stephen
Introduction
Julia Stephen (1846 – 1895) was an English philanthropist and a Pre-Raphaelite model. She was the wife of the biographer Leslie Stephen and mother of several members of the Bloomsbury Group including Virginia Woolf.
Life
Stephen was born in India in 1846.
Julia had been born in India to Dr John Jackson (1804 - 1887) and Maria Pattle (1818 - 1892). Amongst her mother's seven siblings was her aunt, Julia Margaret Pattle, better known as the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron who had introduced the families. Julia was also first cousin to the temperance leader Lady Henry Somerset. After returning to England she became a model for Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones. In 1867 she married Herbert Duckworth (1833 − 1870) by whom she had three children (George b.1868, Stella b.1869 and Gerald b.1870) prior to his death in 1870.
She married the biographer Leslie Stephen on 26 March 1878. They had four children:
- Vanessa (1879–1961) married Clive Bell
- Thoby (1880–1906)
- Virginia (1882–1941) married Leonard 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 adult by then).