Sir Herbert James Stanley, GCMG (25 July 1872 – 5 June 1955) was a leading British administrator, who served at different times as Governor of Northern Rhodesia, Ceylon and Southern Rhodesia.Born in England, Stanley was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, and worked in the foreign service in Dresden and Coburg before serving as the Resident Commissioner for Southern and Northern Rhodesia from 1911 to 1914.Stanley proved controversial in this role when he refused to allow settlers to take land from Africans, instead assigning 21,500,000 acres (87,000 km2) in perpetuity exclusively for the use of Africans.Based in South Africa during World War I, Stanley married Reniera Cloete, from a leading Cape Town family, in Cape Town in 1918.