Stanley, Falkland Islands

Stanley
Falkland Islands
Stanley seen from the air
Location
Location:	51°35’32"S, 57°51’32"W
Data
Population:	2,115  (2006)
Local Government
Website:	http://www.falklandislands.com/

Stanley (also known as "Port Stanley") is the capital and only true town in the Falkland Islands. It stands on the south shore of Stanley Harbour on the island of East Falkland.

Stanley is the main shopping centre on the islands and the hub of East Falkland's road network. Several bus and taxi companies operate out of Stanley.

The Falkland Islands Company owns several shops and a hotel. Stanley has four pubs, eleven hotels and guesthouses, three restaurants, a fish and chip shop and the main tourist office. A grim reminder of the minefields to the south is the bomb disposal unit.

The town hall serves as a post office, philatelic bureau, law court and dance hall. The police station also contains the islands' only prison, with a capacity of thirteen in the cells.

The community centre includes a swimming pool (the only public one in the islands), a sports centre, library, and school. A grass football pitch is located by the community centre and hosts regular games.

On 20 May 2022, it was announced that, as part of the Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours, Stanley would receive city status. On 14 June 2022, Stanley received the letters patent, formally awarding it city status.

Churches

There are three churches including:

• Christ Church Cathedral, the southernmost Protestant cathedral in the world.

Facilities and attractions

Attractions include:

• The Falkland Islands Museum
• Government House, built in 1845 and home to the Governor of the Falkland Islands
• Stanley Cathedral and its whalebone arch
• a golf course
• a totem pole
• several war memorials
• the shipwrecks in the harbour.

Stanley Racecourse, located on the west side of Stanley, holds a two-day horse racing meeting every year on the 26th and 27 December. The Christmas races have been held here for over one hundred years.

Stanley Golf Course has an 18 hole course and a club house. It is also located to the west of Stanley.

King Edward VII Memorial Hospital is the Islands' main hospital, with doctors' practice and surgery, radiology department, dental surgery and emergency facilities.

Stanley is also home to the Falkland Islands Radio Station (FIRS), the Stanley office of the British Antarctic Survey, and the office of the weekly Penguin News newspaper.

A nursery and garden centre is also here, in whose greenhouses some of the islands' vegetables are grown.

History

The original capital of the islands was at Port Louis to the north of the present site of Stanley, on Berkeley Sound. Captains Francis Rawdon Moria Crozier and James Clarke Ross were recruited by Governor Moody in his quest to find a new capital for The Falklands. Both Crozier and Ross (who are remembered in Crozier Place and Ross Road in Stanley) were among the Navy's most distinguished seafarers. They spent 5 months in the islands with their ships Terror and Erebus. Governor Richard Moody (after whom Moody Brook is named) however, decided to move the capital to Port Jackson, which was renamed "Stanley Harbour", after a survey. Stanley Harbour was considered to have a deeper anchorage for visiting ships. Not all the inhabitants were happy with the change, notably one J W Whitington is recorded as saying, "Of all the miserable bog holes, I believe that Mr Moody has selected one of the worst for the site of his town."

Work on the settlement began in 1843 and it became the capital in July 1845. It was named after Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies at the time.

In 1849, thirty married Chelsea Pensioners were settled there to help with the defence of the islands and to develop the new settlement.

The settlement soon grew as a deep-water port, specialising at first in ship repairs; indeed, before the construction of the Panama Canal, Port Stanley was a major repair stop for boats travelling through the Straits of Magellan. The rough waters and intense storms found at the tip of the continent forced many ships to Stanley Harbour, and the ship repair industry helped to drive the island economy. Later it became a base for whaling and sealing in the South Atlantic and Antarctic.

Later still Stanley was an important coaling station for the Royal Navy. This led to ships based here being involved in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the First World War, and the Battle of the River Plate in the Second World War.

The church, and whalebone arch

Landslides caused by excessive peat cutting, destroyed part of the town in 1879 and 1886, the second landslide killing two people. The peat slides destroyed the main church; Christ Church Cathedral was built on the site later.

During the Second World War, a hulk in Stanley Harbour was used for interning the British Fascist and Mosleyite Jeffrey Hamm. Something of a minor player in the BUF due to his youth, Hamm moved to the Falkland Islands in 1939 to work as a teacher. He was arrested there in 1940 for his BUF membership (under Defence Regulation 18B) and later transferred to a camp in South Africa. Released in 1941 he was later called up to the Royal Armoured Corps and served until his discharge in 1944.

Stanley Airport is used by internal flights and provides connections to British bases in Antarctica. Flights to Argentina ended after the 1982 conflict, but a weekly flight to Punta Arenas in Chile began in 1993, which now operates out of Mount Pleasant Airbase.

The Falklands War

Stanley was occupied by Argentine troops for about ten weeks during the Falklands War in 1982. The Argentines renamed the town Puerto Argentino, and although Spanish names for places in the Falklands were historically accepted as alternatives, this one is considered to be extremely offensive by many islanders. The invented name has however gained some support in Spanish-speaking countries.

Stanley suffered considerable damage during the war, from both the Argentine occupation and the British naval shelling of the town, which killed three civilians. After the British secured the high ground around the town the Argentines surrendered with no fighting in the town itself. The beaches and land around it were heavily mined and some areas remain marked minefields.

Since the Falklands War, Stanley has benefited from the growth of the fishing and tourism industries in the Islands. Stanley itself has developed greatly in that time, with the building of a large amount of residential housing, particularly to the east of the town centre. Stanley is now more than a third bigger than it was in 1982.

Name

Stanley is named after Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby

A number of variants of the town's name have appeared in both English and Spanish. Stanley Harbour was originally known as "Port Jackson", and this name would have applied to the area before the town was built, although it could just as easily have been called Sapper Hill. Although the town is officially known as "Stanley", one frequently hears it still referred to as "Port Stanley", especially in British reports about the Falklands War. This is in line with various other settlements around the islands, for example Port Howard and Port Stephens. On 2 August 1956, the Officer Administering the Government of the Falkland Islands reported to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London as follows:

There is some difficulty over the correct name of the capital. Early despatches contain reference to both Port Stanley and Stanley. Port Stanley was accepted by the Naming Commission set up in 1943 to consider the names then being included on the War Office maps. Local opinion differs on the matter, but there is no doubt that Stanley is now common usage and has been for some considerable time. The capital is defined as Stanley in the Interpretation and General Law Ordinance. In the circumstances I would advise that the correct name for the capital is Stanley./

Falklanders often refer to it simply as "Town".

During the occupation in 1982, the Argentine army declared that the town would be known as Puerto Argentino ("Argentine Port"). Patrick Watts of the islands' radio station used circumlocutions to avoid using Argentine names -

It hurt me greatly to call it [the radio station] Radio Nacional Islas Malvinas, and I used to try to avoid referring to Port Stanley as Puerto Argentino. I called it 'the capital' or the 'largest settlement on the island'"

Miscellaneous

Roadsign to Stanley.

Stanley is placed on a north-facing slope in one of the wettest parts of the islands.

Gypsy Cove, known for its magellanic penguins, and Cape Pembroke, the easternmost point of the Falklands, lie nearby. Gypsy Cove is four miles from Stanley and can be reached by taxi or on foot.

Today, roughly one third of the town's residents are employed by the government and tourism is also a major source of employment. On days when two or more large cruise ships dock in the town tourists frequently outnumber the local residents.

Peat was once a prominent fuel source in Stanley, and stacks of drying peats under cover can still be seen by the occasional house.

Stanley is twinned with Whitby in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

Bibliography

• Wagstaff, William Falkland Islands: The Bradt Travel Guide
• Patrick Watts quoted in Fox, Robert Eyewitness Falklands: A personal account of the Falklands campaign, 1982, p309.
• The Toponymy of the Falkland Islands as recorded on Maps and in Gazetteers (pub, Permanent Committee on Geographical Names), available online at [1]
• Southby-Tailyour, Ewen - Falkland Island Shores
• The European (pub. by British Union of Fascists), vol 8, issue 5 (January 1957 p 313-9)
• PRO HO 45/25740 "Jeffrey Hamm" (British Public Records)

Outside links

• Falklandia; information about the Falkland Islands