Stevenson Arthur Blackwood was born on May 22, 1832, in Hampstead, London, England, to Arthur Johnstone Blackwood, groom of the privy chamber, and Cecilia Georgiana Byng (d. 1881). Blackwood studied at Eton College and enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge, but before he could complete his degree, he was appointed as a clerk at the Treasury in 1852. His Treasury clerkship was interrupted by service in the Crimean War from 1854 to 1855. Blackwood was a favorite in London high society, known by the nickname "Beauty Blackwood," but after the war, he began to undergo a conversion to evangelical Christianity, renouncing worldly pleasures and studying Hebrew. In 1858, Blackwood married Harriet Sydney Montagu Dobbs; they would go on to have five children, including the author Algernon Blackwood. From 1862 to 1892, Blackwood published Bible addresses, and in 1873, he succeeded William Pennefather as chairman of the revivalist Mildmay Conference. In professional life, Blackwood moved from the Treasury to the Post Office, being promoted to secretary of the latter in 1880. Under his administration, the Post Office introduced postal orders in 1880, inland parcel post in 1883, and sixpenny telegrams in 1885. In 1887, Blackwood was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and dropped his first name, therefore becoming Sir Arthur Blackwood. He died on October 2, 1893, in Essex, at the age of 61.