Life
Stanley was born in Alderley, Cheshire, the son of Edward Stanley, rector of Alderley and later Bishop of Norwich. A brother was Arthur Penrhyn Stanley and his sister Mary Stanley.
He entered the Royal Naval College at the age of fifteen, and for nine years served under Phillip Parker King on HMS Adventure and John Franklin in the Mediterranean. In 1836 he sailed to the Arctic as scientific officer on HMS Terror under George Back. In 1838 he was given command of HMS Britomart and sailed to Australia and New Zealand, returning in 1843. In March 1842 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
In December 1846 Stanley sailed from Portsmouth in charge of HMS Rattlesnake, with the purpose of surveying the seas around the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait. The ship called at Madeira, Rio de Janeiro, Simon's Town and Mauritius, arriving in Sydney in July 1847. Stanley died in Sydney on the return trip having accomplished the main objects of the voyage and was given a state funeral.
In memory of his brother, Dean Stanley of Westminster Abbey donated the font in ChristChurch Cathedral, Christchurch.
Read more about this topic: Owen Stanley
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“There is no going back,
For standing still means death, and life is moving on,
Moving on towards death. But sometimes standing still is also life.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.”
—Paul Theroux (b. 1941)
“The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better.... Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)