Stanley Holloway five children, including the actor Julian Holloway. Holloway was born in Manor Park, Essex (now in the London Borough of Newham), the younger child and only son of George Augustus Holloway (1860–1919), a lawyer's clerk, and Florence May "née" Bell (1862–1913), a housekeeper and dressmaker. He was named after Henry Morton Stanley, the journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and for his search for David Livingstone. There were theatrical connections in the Holloway family going back to Charles Bernard (1830–1894), an actor and theatre manager, who was the brother of Holloway's maternal grandmother. Holloway's paternal grandfather, Augustus
David Livingstone Oswell and Anna Mary married and had children. His one regret in later life was that he did not spend enough time with his children. The archives of David Livingstone are maintained by the Archives of the University of Glasgow (GUAS). On 11 November 2011, Livingstone's 1871 Field Diary, as well as other original works, was published online for the first time by the David Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project. Papers relating to Livingstone's time as a London Missionary Society missionary (including hand-annotated maps of South East Africa) are held by the Archives of the School of Oriental and African Studies.