Julian Thoby Stephen (1880 - 1906), known as the Goth, was the elder brother of several members of the
Bloomsbury Group, namely his sisters
Vanessa Bell and
Virginia Woolf and his younger brother
Adrian.
Thoby Stephen was the eldest son of
Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep. As the result of his mother's first marriage, he was also a half-brother of
George and
Gerald Duckworth. He 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 from Clifton. He was a friend of
Lytton Strachey, who was enchanted by his masculinity and introduced him to the "Reading Club". He was described as "over six feet tall and of somewhat ponderous build."
Expected to distinguish himself, he contracted typhoid at the age of 26 while on holiday in Greece, and died shortly thereafter.