James Kenneth Stephen

|birth_place = London, England |image = Jkstephenoval.jpg |caption = Photograph of James Kenneth Stephen |occupation = Poet |known = Jack the Ripper suspect
Tutor of Prince Albert Victor |death_date = |death_place = St Andrew's Hospital, Northampton, England }}

James Kenneth Stephen (25 February 1859 – 3 February 1892) was an English poet, and tutor to Prince Albert Victor, eldest son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII).

Stephen was a son of the lawyer, judge, and philosopher Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, and a first cousin to Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Both cousins had symptoms of bipolar disorder. Stephen was a member of the Apostles intellectual society. He served a term as President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1880, and he was made a Fellow of King's College in 1885.Following a serious head injury in late December 1886, he exhibited erratic emotional and mental behaviour, such as plunging a sword blade into bread and being amused at a medical prediction of his own death.

Stephen published two volumes of poetry in 1891, which satirized or parodied several notable writers. In November 1891, two of Stephen's brothers had him committed to the mental asylum St Andrew's Hospital after he demonstrated persecutory delusions concerning his imminent arrest. While still in the asylum, Stephen learned that his former student Prince Albert Victor had died. Stephen started refusing to eat, and he eventually starved himself to death. He died at the age of 32. The cause of death, according to the death certificate, was mania. Provided by Wikipedia