Author: Leslie Stephen

Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) was a gifted child but did not do well in school. After transferring several times, he eventually settled in at Trinity Hall in 1850, where he achieved a mathematics scholarship. There he also discovered his passion for running and mountaineering. In 1863 he went to the United States as a supporter of the emancipation of slaves, going on to write The Times on the American War. In 1867 he married Thackeray’s younger daughter, who unexpectedly died in 1875; he remarried in the spring of 1878. When the renowned author passed away his friends formed Cambridge’s Leslie Stephen lectureship.