Julian Thoby Stephen known as the Goth, was the elder brother of several members of the Bloomsbury Group

Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...

, namely his sisters Vanessa Bell

Vanessa Bell

Vanessa Bell was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury group, and the sister of Virginia Woolf.- Biography and art :...

 and Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....

 and his younger brother Adrian

Adrian Stephen

Adrian Stephen was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, an author and psychoanalyst, and the brother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell...

.

Thoby Stephen was the eldest son of Leslie Stephen

Leslie Stephen

Sir Leslie Stephen, KCB was an English author, critic and mountaineer, and the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.-Life:...

 and Julia Prinsep. As the result of his mother's first marriage, he was also a half-brother of George

George Herbert Duckworth

Sir George Herbert Duckworth CB FSA was an English public servant.-Early life and family:The son of Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, of Orchardleigh Park, Somerset, by his marriage to Julia Princep Jackson, a niece of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, Duckworth had a brother, Gerald, who...

 and Gerald Duckworth

Gerald Duckworth

Gerald de l'Etang Duckworth was a British publisher.-Background and early life:Duckworth was a son of Herbert Duckworth, a London barrister, by his wife Julia Jackson. His middle name, de l'Etang, was the surname of one of his mother's ancestors, Antoine de l'Etang, a page to Queen Marie Antoinette...

. He was educated at Clifton College

Clifton College

Clifton College is a co-educational independent school in Clifton, Bristol, England, founded in 1862. In its early years it was notable for emphasising science in the curriculum, and for being less concerned with social elitism, e.g. by admitting day-boys on equal terms and providing a dedicated...

, after failing to gain a place at Eton

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

. However, this did not hold him back, since he won an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

 from Clifton. He was a friend of Lytton Strachey

Lytton Strachey

Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...

, 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.