Owen Stanley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Captain Owen Stanley FRS RN (13 June 1811 – 13 March 1850) was a British Royal Navy officer and surveyor.

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 [1]

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.[citation needed]

In memory of his brother, Dean Stanley of Westminster Abbey donated the font in ChristChurch Cathedral, Christchurch.[2]

Legacy

The Owen Stanley Range in New Guinea is named after him.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 29 December 2010. 
  2. ↑ http://www.christchurchcathedral.co.nz/Discover/Inside-the-Cathedral/The-Nave-Northern-Side
  • Huxley, Julian (ed). T.H. Huxley's diary of the voyage of HMS Rattlesnake. London 1935
  • MacGillivray, John Voyage Of HMS Rattlesnake
Volume I: Gutenberg Project EText num 12433, ISBN 978-1-4065-2973-9
Volume II: Gutenberg Project EText num 12525, ISBN 978-1-4021-7207-6,

External links

Authority control
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.