Caroline Emelia Stephen

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.

Life

Stephen was born on 8 December 1834 at Kensington Gore on Hyde Park Gate in London. She was the daughter of the abolitionist Sir James 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 and Sir Leslie Stephen (1832–1904) who was the first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography and father of Virginia Woolf. 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 Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University. 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.

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. 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.