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Late on Saturday 31st January 1953 Sergeant Gray and six constables deployed from Shoeburyness Garrison to help warn and evacuate residents in the low lying areas of Foulness Island from imminent floods by a North Sea tidal surge. At 11.50 p.m. he telephoned headquarters from Havengore Bridge where water was up to the handrail.
Having turned around a teenage boy crossing into the area he went alone to warn a family at Havengore Farm. He raised the stockman in time to release stock from the cowshed when they saw two huge two tidal waves approaching. The stockman went back to the house to get his family to safety upstairs, while Sergeant Gray went to another two-storey building on Havengore Island. It was unoccupied but he was able to report the situation to headquarters before taking refuge from the flood on the roof.
Sergeant Gray survived the icy cold night on the roof and was last seen alive on Sunday moring wading through the rough deep water towards Foulness. Despite ongoing searches his body was not found until eight weeks later on 29th March
On 1st April a coroners inquest returned a verdict of accidental death by asphyxia due to drowning in floods on the night of 1st February 1953. Sergeant Gray was the only police officer to lose his life in the unprecedented North Sea tidal floods, which caused 200 deaths at sea and over 300 on land including 120 along the Essex coast where flood water reached depths of 12 feet in places.
Stanley was a Sergeant in the War Department Constabulary providing security at the Defence Test & Evaluation Organisation (DTEO) at Shoeburyness military garrison. His early days in the constabulary and war service are currently unknown but when married in 1946 he was employed as a constable at the Royal Ordnance Depot at Weedon near Northampton, probably moving to Shoeburyness on promotion.
Stanley was twice married with a son from each union, aged 19 and 7,
and resided at 3 Sutton Road, New Ranges, Shoeburyness.
His funeral took place at Sutton Road Cemetery where he was cremated.
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