Born to an English Quaker family in the north of England, Stackhouse worked as an official with a railway company, while indulging in a passion for foreign travel. A member of the Royal Geographical Society, he was a friend and associate of Robert Falcon Scott, and assisted in the preparation of Scott's Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13. Stackhouse's aborted plan for an Antarctic expedition was originally conceived as a continuation of Scott's work. After its abandonment, he revised and extended his scheme into a broad oceanographic survey, and went to America to gather support and funding for this purpose. He was lost in the "Lusitania" while returning to England.