Stanley Copley trained at Guy's Hospital, where he was a house surgeon and resident obstetrician, after qualifying in 1894. During 1898 he was house surgeon at the Stamford and Rutland General Infirmary; took the Fellowship and the Cambridge Public Health Diploma in 1899. He then emigrated to South Africa, where he registered as a medical practitioner in 1901. In the later part of his life he practised at 434 Windermere Road, Durban, where he died aged about ninety between 1961 and 1965.