Profile Text
Birth Name: Adeline Virginia Stephen
Date of Birth: 25 January, 1882
Place of Birth: Kensington, London, England, U.K.
Date of Death: 28 March, 1941
Place of Death: Rodmell, East Sussex, England, U.K.
Ethnicity: English, as well as one eighth French, small amount of Scottish
Virginia Woolf was an English author. She wrote the novels The Voyage Out , Night and Day , Jacob’s Room , Mrs Dalloway , To the Lighthouse , Orlando: A Biography , The Waves , The Years , and Between the Acts ; the short stories/short story collections The Mark on the Wall , Kew Gardens , Monday or Tuesday , The New Dress , The Duchess and the Jeweller , A Haunted House and Other Short Stories , and The Widow and the Parrot ; the play Freshwater ; the biographies Flush: A Biography and Roger Fry: A Biography ; and the essays/essay collections Modern Fiction , Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown , On Being Ill , A Room of One’s Own , The London Scene , Three Guineas , A Letter to a Young Poet , and Moments of Being / A Sketch of the Past . She was considered one of the most influential 20th century modernist writers, and helped pioneer literary stream of consciousness narration. She was a founding member of the Bloomsbury Group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers, and artists.
Virginia was the daughter of Julia Stephen (born Julia Prinsep Jackson), a pre-Raphaelite model and philanthropist, and Sir Leslie Stephen, an author, critic, historian, essayist, biographer, mountaineer, and Ethical movement activist. Her siblings were painter, interior designer, and Bloomsbury Group member Vanessa Bell; Thoby Stephen, known as “The Goth;” and author and psychoanalyst Adrian Stephen. Her older maternal half-siblings were public servant George Herbert Duckworth and publisher Gerald Duckworth. She was the aunt of poet Julian Bell, who was killed fighting in the Spanish Civil War; historian and author Quentin Bell; and writer, painter, and artist Angelica Garnett. The family spent summers at St Ives, Cornwall.
Virginia’s father’s first wife was Harriet Stephen, the daughter of writer and illustrator William Makepeace Thackeray, who wrote Vanity Fair .
Virginia’s father was from a family involved in the upper echelons of England’s abolitionist movement, and belonged to the Clapham Sect, an early 19th-century group of mainly evangelical Christian social reformers. Her grandfather Sir James Stephen and her great-grandfather James Stephen were prominent abolitionists. Abolitionist William Wilberforce was her great-grandfather’s brother-in-law. Virginia was a niece of lawyer, law reformer, judge, writer, and philosopher Sir James Fitzjames Stephen; and of philanthropist Caroline Stephen, who was a writer on Quakerism. Her first cousin, Sir James’s daughter, was librarian Katharine Stephen, who was principal of Newnham College, at Cambridge University. Her paternal first cousins, once removed, were writer, journalist, and editor Edward Dicey and Whig jurist and constitutional theorist A. V. Dicey.
Virginia’s mother was born in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, India. Her maternal great-aunt, grandmother’s sister, was photographer and portraitist Julia Margaret Cameron, who was married to jurist Charles Hay Cameron. On her mother’s side, she was also a first cousin, once removed, of philanthropist, temperance leader, and campaigner for women’s rights Lady Henry Somerset; and of advocate for penal reform Adeline Marie Russell, Duchess of Bedford; and a second cousin of diplomat Herman Norman.
Virginia was married to political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant Leonard Woolf (Leonard Sidney Woolf), until her death. Leonard was of English Jewish, German Jewish, and Dutch Jewish descent. His sister was author Bella Sidney Woolf.
Virginia’s paternal grandfather was Sir James Stephen (the son of James Stephen and Anne/Anna/Ann Stent). Virginia’s grandfather James was born in Lambeth, London, and was a civil servant, who was British Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, from 1836 to 1847; and Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. He was a contributor to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which abolished slavery in the British Empire. Virginia’s great-grandfather James Stephen was born in Poole, Dorset, and was a politician and lawyer, who was the principal lawyer associated with England’s abolitionist movement at the time; he was a Member of Parliament for Tralee, from 1808 to 1812, and then for for East Grinstead, from 1812 to 1815. He was the son of James Stephen, who was from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and was a member of The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple; and of Sibella Milner. Virginia’s great-grandfather James Stephen was the brother of legal writer and serjeant-at-law Henry John Stephen and solicitor, barrister, author, and radical anti-slavery proponent George Stephen.
Virginia’s great-grandmother Ann Stent was the daughter of Henry Stent, a stockbroker; and of Martha Payne. Virginia’s great-grandfather James later re-married to Sarah Wilberforce, the sister of William Wilberforce, a leader of the movement to abolish the Atlantic slave trade.
Virginia’s paternal grandmother was Jane Catherine Venn (the daughter of The Rev. John Venn and Katherine “Kitty” King). Jane was born in Clapham, London. The Rev. John was born in Clapham, the son of The Rev. Henry Venn, who was vicar of Huddersfield, from 1759 to 1771; and of Eling Bishop. The Rev. Henry and Eling were the children of Protestant ministers. The Venn family men were Protestant ministers going back several generations. The Rev. Henry’s maternal grandfather, John Ashton, was a Jacobite loyalist, and Protestant, who was convicted of high treason in a plot to overthrow King William III and Queen Mary II, and reinstate King James II. He was executed.
Virginia’s maternal grandfather was Dr. John Jackson (the son of George Jackson and Mary Howard). John was born in Hackney, London. George was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, the son of William Jackson and Susannah Dean. He was a Cambridge-educated physician, who was a professor at Calcutta Medical College, and worked with the Bengal Medical Service and East India Company. Virginia’s great-grandmother Mary was the daughter of William Howard and Elizabeth Mitford, who was born in Calcutta, India.
Virginia’s maternal grandmother was Maria Theodosia “Mia” Pattle (the daughter of James Peter Pattle and Adeline Marie/Maria de l’Etang). Maria was born at sea, one of seven sisters who were raised in India, and spoke Hindustani. Her sister, Sarah, was married to Sir Henry Thoby Prinsep, a director of the East India Company. Virginia’s great-grandfather James was born in Beauleah, Bengal, India, the son of English parents, Thomas Pattle, who was from St Katharine’s by the Tower, London; and Sarah Haselby. James worked for the East India Company, with whom his family had been long associated. Virginia’s great-grandmother Adeline was born in India, the daughter of Chevalier Ambrose Pierre Antoine de l’Etang, who was born in Versailles, Yvelines, France, and had been a page to Marie Antoinette and officer in the Garde du Corps of King Louis XVI; and of Thérèse Josephe Blin de Grincourt, who was also of French origin.
Virginia’s great-great-grandmother Thérèse was said to have had some Bengali Indian ancestry. It is not clear if this is accurate.
Sources: Genealogies of Virginia Woolf – https://www.geni.com https://www.findagrave.com
Adeline Stephen/Virginia Woolf on the 1901 England and Wales Census – https://www.familysearch.org Adeline Stephen/Virginia Woolf on the 1911 England and Wales Census – https://www.familysearch.org