A member of the Mercantile Marine Reserve, he was born in Walton in 1896.  His parents were James Frederick Hawes and Anna Maria Self, he was married to Mary Ellen and lived in Milford Haven, they married in June 1917, just 4 months before he died.  His parents lived Avenue Villas Lower Walton in 1911, he had 4 older brothers and a younger sister.

 

He died, age 21, whilst serving on HM Yacht Kethailes.  On 11 October 1917 sunk in the Irish Sea in a collision with the Bibby Line steamship Leicestershire near the Blackwater Light Vessel, off Wexford on the south-easternmost tip of Ireland. At least 6 persons aboard H.M.Y. 'Kethailes' died. The wreck has subsequently been positively identified by modern deep-water divers.  Stanley is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.

In the churchyard of St. Celynin, in the tiny coastal village of Llwyngwril - a third of the way between Barmouth on the Mawddach Estuary and Aberdovey, all in Merioneth (today's Gwynedd), mid-Wales - are buried all in one common grave Second Engineer James Grieve, of the Mercantile Marine Reserve, and five unidentified ratings from H.M. Yacht 'Kethailes'. Clearly the bodies were not landed here by any ship large enough to have run down 'Kethailes', so presumably they were washed ashore sometime after the sinking, which might explain why they were unidentified, as the sinking took place on quite the other side of the Irish Sea.

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