James Stanley Cavaye was born in 1914. He served as a Councillor in Edinburgh. He was first elected as a Progressive to the old City of Edinburgh Corporation in 1970 and switched to the Conservatives two years later. When local government was reorganised in 1974 he successfully stood as a Tory for both Lothian Regional Council and Edinburgh District Council.

His working life was spent in Portobello Power Station, originally run by the municipal Electricity Department, latterly the South of Scotland Electricity Board.

Cavaye had been a collector of glass-plate slides for 'magic lantern shows', buying these in the small junk shops that used to be found in Edinburgh's Grassmarket and the West Bow. He found and saved the Begbie Collection of very early glass-plate photographs of Edinburgh. They were found in a flat in St. James Square in 1950. He gifted the plates to the City Arts Centre, Edinburgh, in 1990. The gift is known as the 'Cavaye Collection of Thomas Begbie Plates'.

He was a founder and former Chair of the Edinburgh Festival Volunteer Guides Association (set up in 1947) which gave tours of the Royal Mile. He also gave lectures on the history of Edinburgh.

Stanley Cavaye died in 2004. He was buried at Liberton Cemetary on Thursday 12 February 2004.