Sir George Stephen QC (1794 – 20 June 1879) was a British solicitor, barrister, author and radical anti-slavery proponent. He was the leader of the Agency Society, a ginger group of the Anti-Slavery Society. He advocated for immediate rather than gradual emancipation and adopted more agitating campaigning tactics.

While he played a crucial role in the abolition of slavery, he was known to be quarrelsome and short-tempered. He became involved in disputes that damaged his career.

Stephen was the fourth and youngest son of James Stephen, C.B., by his marriage with Ann, only child of Henry Stent, of Stoke Newington, a village then just north of London. He was the brother of the Right Hon. Sir James Stephen, for many years Under-Secretary of State in the Colonial Office, whose policy he for a long period initiated and controlled. One of his cousins was Sir Alfred Stephen.

Born in 1794 at Saint Kitts, George Stephen was originally intended for the medical profession; but after spending three years in the study of anatomy, and going through a two-years' course at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He left Cambridge without graduating, after doing brilliant work, and entered the office of Messrs. Kaye & Freshfield, solicitors to the Bank of England. Having served his articles, he went into practice on his own account, and was engaged by the Government to obtain evidence against Queen Caroline, of whose guilt he was convinced.

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It was, however, in connection with the movement for the abolition of slavery in the British colonies that he mainly distinguished himself. His father (James Stephen) had married, as his second wife, the sister of William Wilberforce, and was allied with that great man, Zachary Macaulay, Thomas Clarkson, and others in the abolition of the slave trade, achieved in 1807 George Stephen, along with other more radical abolitionists such as Elizabeth Heyrick, was a fierce advocate of immediate emancipation rather than the gradual emancipation that Buxton, Macauley and Stephen's father had originally been pushing for. Ultimately, he was successful in pushing anti-slavery leaders to achieve immediate emancipation.

After joining the abolitionist cause, Stephen, became impatient with the 'tame monotony' of the Anti-Slavery Society and their push for gradual rather than immediate emancipation. He was critical of Wilberforce (and the old guard of the movement in general) as being indecisive and too ready to compromise. Wilberforce, he said, was excessively deferential to "rank and power". In a meeting of the Society in 1831, Stephen advocated for the formation of a splinter group of 'young' abolitionists that could take 'energetic measures.' His proposal was rejected by the elder abolitionists as too radical and likely to alienate supporters in Parliament. However, after the meeting, he was approached by James Copper and invited to a dinner with other abolitionists Quakers to present his ideas. He was given funding to form the Agency Committee (as a sub-group of the Anti-Slavery Society), composed of other 'immediatists' around the country, and pursued a series of tactics designed to generate 'pressure from without.'

In 1832, emboldened by the likely election of a Whig government upcoming, Stephen broke off entirely from the Anti-Slavery Society. The Agency Committee became the Agency Society and they began pursuing more daring tactics - some of which were met with fierce and at times violent resistance by the West Indian interests.