From the age of sixteen, Julia became “familiar with the duty of the sick bed.” She nursed her mother who suffered from rheumatism and accompanied her on many trips to health resorts in Europe. Julia Jackson met her future husband, Herbert Duckworth, in Venice in 1862. The young barrister, taking vacation abroad, was a friend of Julia’s sister Mary (1840-1917) and her husband Herbert Fisher (1825-1903).

In 1866, the first time Leslie Stephen saw Julia, he said: “I saw and remembered her, as I might have seen and remembered the Sistine Madonna or any other presentation of superlative beauty. Her loveliness thrills me to the core, whenever I call up the vision.”