Derby was the son of Sir Thomas Stanley, 4th Baronet, and Elizabeth Patten of Preston, and succeeded his father in the baronetcy in 1714.

As Lord Lieutenant, Derby was ordered to embody the Lancashire Militia in September 1745 after the government's forces had been defeated by the Jacobite rebels at the Battle of Prestonpans.

He died in February 1776, aged 86, and was succeeded in the earldom by his grandson Edward, his son James Smith-Stanley, Lord Strange, having predeceased him.

His great-great-grandson Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, was three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

This article about a Member of the Parliament of Great Britain (1707–1800) representing an English constituency is a stub.