"In early years" (so his son the Dean of Westminster records) "he had acquired a passion for the sea, which he cherished down to the time of his entrance at college, and which never left him through life. It first originated, as he believed, in the delight which he experienced, when between three and four years of age, on a visit to the seaport of Weymouth; and long afterwards he retained a vivid recollection of the point where he caught the first sight of a ship, and shed tears because he was not allowed to go on board. So strongly was he possessed by the feeling thus acquired, that as a child he used to leave his bed and sleep on the shelf of a wardrobe, for the pleasure of imagining himself in a berth on board a man-of-war.... The passion was overruled by circumstances beyond his control, but it gave a colour to his whole after-life. He never ceased to retain a keen interest in everything relating to the navy.... He seemed instinctively to know the history, character, and state of every ship and every officer in the service. Old naval captains were often astonished at finding in him a more accurate knowledge than their own of when, where, how, and under whom, such and such vessels had been employed. The stories of begging impostors professing to be shipwrecked seamen were detected at once by his cross-examinations. The sight of a ship, the society of sailors, the embarkation on a voyage, were always sufficient to inspirit and delight him wherever he might be." His life, when at his mother's home on the Welsh coast, only increased this liking, and till he went to Cambridge in 1798 his education had not been calculated to prepare him for a clerical life. He never received any instruction in classics; of Greek and Latin and mathematics he knew nothing, and owing to his schools and tutors being constantly changed, his general knowledge was of a desultory sort. His force of character, great perseverance and ambition to excel are shown in the strenuous manner in which he overcame all these obstacles, and at the close of his college career at St. John's, Cambridge, became a wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1802. After a year passed in foreign travel Edward Stanley returned home at his brother's request, and took command of the Alderley Volunteers--a corps of defence raised by him on the family estate in expectation of a French invasion. In 1803 he was ordained and became curate of Windlesham, in Surrey. There he remained until he was presented by his father in 1805 to the living of Alderley, where he threw himself enthusiastically into his work. Alderley parish had long been neglected, and there was plenty of scope for the young Rector.