Stanhope later served from August 1847 in the Pacific on HMS Asia, an 84-gun ship commanded by Rear-Admiral Phipps Hornby.

[4][5] Stanhope received a Royal Humane Society Silver Medal in 1851 for the rescue of a drowning seaman.

[2] Soon after his death a group of his friends formed a memorial in his honour and raised four hundred pounds—a large sum at the time—for the issuance of a yearly gold medal honoring a courageous rescue.

The first gold medal was awarded to Matthew Webb for an attempt to rescue a man drowning in the Atlantic Ocean in 1873.

[12] The obverse shows a boy blowing at an extinguished torch[14] with the inscription Lateat Scintillvia Forsan, which means "a small spark may perhaps lie hid", the motto of the Royal Humane Society.

[15] The standard for the award of the Stanhope Gold Medal has been met by the following notable recipients for the years designated.