A sheet with two portrait studies of the Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-1881), later Dean of Westminster

Born in Alderley, Cheshire, where his father Edward was rector (and subsequently Bishop of Norwich), Stanley was educated at Rugby School and Balliol College Oxford. He completed a number of celebrated historical and theological publications including Historical Memorials of Canterbury Cathedral (1855) and Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (1865). In 1851 he was made a canon of Canterbury Cathedral, and subsequently canon of Christ Church Oxford, and on 22 December 1863 he married Lady Augusta Bruce, woman of the bedchamber to Queen Victoria in Westminster Abbey. In January 1864 he was installed as Dean of Westminster and he greatly expanded its national role. In 1874 he went to St Petersburg to officiate at the wedding of the Queen's son Prince Alfred. When Lady Augusta died in 1876 after an illness lasting several years, her funeral was quite unusually attended by the Queen, as well as Princess Beatrice, although they viewed it privately from the Abbot's Pew (accessed from the Deanery) overlooking the nave. Stanley died on 18 July 1881 and was buried alongside his wife in the south eastern chapel of Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey.