 Stebbing lived through some remarkably turbulent decades, in terms both of social and political upheavals and of philosophical developments, and these are reflected in the direction and development of her work. Her personal life and career, in contrast, were relatively uneventful. She was born in 1885 in North London, the youngest of six surviving children of a fish merchant. She went up to Girton College Cambridge in 1904, a time at which University study for women was very much the exception and long before Cambridge awarded degrees or even full University membership to women. Apparently her first interest was to study science, but this was deemed by her family to be too demanding for her on the grounds of her delicate health, so she matriculated in History. Whether or not it was a legitimate bar to scientific study, it is true that Stebbing suffered from ill health throughout her life. In particular, she was afflicted with Menière’s disease, a disorder of the inner ear which caused her fits of vertigo, severe headaches, and forced prolonged periods of bed rest.