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 remained there in 1824–1826, but these dates are inconsistent. For a few months in 1826, he served as a volunteer on board the Royal Navy's which was then in the English Channel. After gaining the rank of midshipman in 1826, in 1826–1827, he spent time about South America on board . In 1827–1830, he was on the Royal Navy's . And then in 1830, he was with Phillip Parker King on board HMS Adventure while it surveyed the Straits of Magellan at the tip of South America. By 1830, the 1821–1829 Greek War of Independence had ended and the United Kingdom found itself in a 'peace keeping' role about Greece in the Mediterranean once the fighting stopped. Owen Stanley found himself in the middle of these efforts. By 1831, he served as mate on board the Royal Navy's and then with Captain John Franklin on both in the Mediterranean in 1831. In 1831, he received promotion to lieutenant and continued to serve in Grecian waters until 1836 on a number of ships. He served on in 1831; in 1831–1832, he served on ; he was aboard in 1832–1834, and finished his 'Greece Assignment' on board in 1834–1836, during which time he spent eighty-four days surveying the Gulf of Corinth in a small boat, which he ended up hauling over the Isthmus to rejoin Mastiff. In 1836, with his Mediterranean service now over, he sailed to the Arctic as scientific officer on under George Back. In 1838 he was given command of and sailed to Australia and New Zealand, returning in 1843. While on the 'high seas' two things of some note happened to him: on 26 March 1839, he was promoted to commander; and, in March 1842, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1843–1846 he was assigned shore duty. During that time, on 23 September 1844, he was promoted to captain at the age of 33. In December 1846 Stanley sailed from Portsmouth in charge of , with the naturalists Thomas Huxley, John