Early Life
Born in Kensington, London, he was the son of James Stephen, the brother of author and critic Sir Leslie Stephen, the uncle of author Virginia Woolf, and cousin of jurist A.V. Dicey. He was educated at Eton College, and for two years at King's College London. In October 1847 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. Although an outstanding student he did not win any prizes, mainly because he was uninterested in mathematics or classics, which formed the basis of the course. He was already acquainted with Sir Henry Maine, six years his senior, and then newly appointed to the Chair of civil law at Cambridge. Although their temperaments were very different, their acquaintance became a strong friendship, which ended only with Maine's death in 1888.
Stephen was introduced by Maine into the Cambridge society known as Cambridge Apostles, forming friendships with some of its members. The society contained a remarkable group of men who afterwards became eminent in different ways: for example, developer of classical electromagnetic theory James Clerk Maxwell and Liberal Party leader Sir William Harcourt.
Read more about this topic: James Fitzjames Stephen
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