John Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley of Alderley

Who was John Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley of Alderley?

John Thomas Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley of Alderley, known as Sir John Stanley, 7th Baronet, from 1807 to 1839, was a British peer and politician.

Stanley was the son of Sir John Thomas Stanley, 6th Baronet and elder brother of Edward Stanley, the Bishop of Norwich. He succeeded in the baronetcy and to the family seat at Alderley Park in Cheshire on his father's death in 1807. This branch of the Stanley family descended from the Hon. Sir John Stanley, third son of Thomas Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley. His mother was Margaret Owen, heiress of the Penrhos estate on Anglesey and he was appointed High Sheriff of Anglesey for 1809.

He was elected to the House of Commons for Wootton Bassett in 1790, a seat he held until 1796. He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1790. In 1839 Stanley was raised to the peerage as Baron Stanley of Alderley, in the County of Chester.

Lord Stanley of Alderley married the Hon. Maria Josepha, daughter of John Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield, in 1796. He died at Alderley Park in October 1850, aged 83, and was succeeded in his titles by his son Edward, who had already been elevated to the peerage in his own right as Baron Eddisbury.