Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis.  Permission is given for 
a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and 
private study only.  The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without 
the permission of the Author. 
 



 

 

 

Anna Paterson Stout: Portrait of a New Zealand Lady 

1858 – 1931 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master 

Of Arts in History at Massey University 

 

 

 

 

 

Monica R. Webb 

2015 

 
 



 

Figure 1: Lady Anna Stout, 1926, oil on canvas, gold plastered frame by A.F. Nicholls, ref: G-830-1, 
reproduced with the permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.  

i 
 



Abstract 

 

Lady Anna Paterson Stout was one of the most widely-known advocates for women in New Zealand 
in her lifetime (1858-1931) and a leading figure of the early women’s movement.  During the course 
of her life, which corresponded to New Zealand’s development from settler society to established 
Dominion, and due to her marriage to Sir Robert Stout, she knew personally, worked with or 
influenced nearly every leading political, social and activist figure of that period.  Why surprisingly 
little is known about her today forms one of the central questions to this thesis.  This thesis analyses 
Anna’s life in light of historians Mary Beard and Gerda Lerner’s advocacy of women as force in their 
generations.  It also explores Anna’s deliberate use of influence within the unique context of early 
female political equality as well as her willingness to act deliberately and independently from her 
more famous husband as a conscious exemplar of the New Woman.  This thesis broadens our 
understanding of the personal relationships between the early leading women of New Zealand, such 
as Kate Sheppard, with whom Anna worked closely and often controversially. It also looks closely at 
Anna’s transnational engagement with the British suffrage movement in London during the critical 
years of 1909 to 1914. A study of the life of Anna Stout opens up numerous further avenues of 
inquiry as well as contributing to our understanding of New Zealand’s development in the 
immediate post-suffrage era.  The thesis concludes that Anna Stout was a radical for her time and 
one who consciously used her access to centres of influence to publicly advance the cause of women 
on multiple levels. 

 

 

  

ii 
 



Acknowledgements 

 

 

The decision to undertake post-graduate study while managing full time work and family 
commitments is inherently selfish and not one that is made alone.  It affects many others and it is 
these people to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude.  First and foremost, I thank my husband Ian 
and sons Douglas and Cameron; for their patience, the countless meals cooked on the family’s 
behalf, Sundays spent house cleaning while mum was researching, and their willingness to play the 
role of captive audience to my unfolding tale.  My gratefulness is matched only by my pride in their   
achievements in the field of history. 

I want to thank my good friend, Kate Jones, who was the first to call me a historian and helped me 
believe it.  It has been a pleasure to share this journey with her as she wrote her own PhD. 

I have been very fortunate to have the supervision of Professor Peter Lineham and Dr. Geoff 
Watson.  Their enthusiasm for my topic as well as their very practical guidance has encouraged and 
guided me at every step of this two-year project.  I am particularly grateful for their understanding of 
the demands that so many graduate students have to juggle.  I wish to thank Professor Barbara 
Brookes of the University of Otago for the interest she expressed in my topic and the time she gave 
me in the early stages of my research.  I am particularly grateful to her for sharing her preliminary 
research findings from Seacliff Asylum in regards to its importance to the Stout family.  I also want to 
acknowledge the wisdom and experience of Assistant Professor Birgitta Bader-Zaar of the University 
of Vienna.  Our conversations on the evolving nature of women’s history in academia have been an 
immense help to me.  Finally, I would like to acknowledge the kindness and professionalism of the 
librarians of the Alexander Turnbull Library, the Hocken Library and Massey Albany Library.  In 
particular, Sharyn Bonham and Vanessa Gibson of Massey Albany have provided me with unerring 
support.  No request was ever too small for their attention.   

iii 
 



Abbreviations 

 

 

 

DU:HO  Hocken Library, Dunedin 

FWG  Fabian Women’s Group 

NUWSS  National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies 

SPWC  The Society for the Protection of Women and Children 

WCTU  Women’s Christian Temperance Union 

WSPU  Women’s Social and Political Union 

WTU  Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington 

  

iv 
 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

 

 

Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ii 

Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. iii 

Abbreviations …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. iv 

Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… v 

Illustrations ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. vi 

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 

Chapter One: Anna’s World: Colony to Dominion……………………………………………………………………. 8 

Chapter Two: Family Life………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 20 

Chapter Three:  Anna’s Philosophy ………………………………………………………………………………………… 36 

Chapter Four: Activist ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 46 

Chapter Five: England ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 68 

Conclusion: Understanding Anna ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 85 

Appendix One: Women’s Suffrage Procession 1910 Article in Otago Daily Times …………………. 88 

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 98 

  

v 
 



Illustrations 

 

 

Figure I Lady Anna Stout, 1926, oil on canvas, by A. F. Nicholls, reference G-830-1, 
reproduced with the permission of Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New 
Zealand. 

 

Figure II Lady Anna Stout, 1882, Burton Brothers, Dunedin, Reference Port 1508, 
(c/nE6631/6A), reproduced with the permission of Hocken Library, Dunedin, New 
Zealand.  Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago. 

 

Figure III Lady Anna Stout in wedding dress, 1876, Clifford and Morris, Dunedin, Reference 
Port 1506, (c/nE6631/7A), reproduced with the permission of Hocken Library, 
Dunedin, New Zealand.  Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of 
Otago. 

 

Figure IV Sir Robert and Lady Anna Stout on their wedding day, 1876, photographer 
unidentified, Reference PA-Coll 7581-08, reproduced with the permission of 
Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. 

 

Figure V Lady Anna Stout, 1894, L.F. Jones, Dunedin, Reference Port 1507, (c/nE2910/15), 
reproduced with the permission of Hocken Library, Dunedin, New Zealand.  Hocken 
Collections, Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago. 

 

Figure VI The convention called by the Canterbury Women’s Institute which resulted in the 
formation of the National Council of the Women of New Zealand, 1896.  Image from 
Christchurch City Libraries, file reference: CCL-PhotoCD8-IMG0086. 

 

 

 

vi 
 



 

Introduction 

Women are and always have been active participants in the shaping of events 

        Gerda Lerner, 19881 

 

Lady Anna Stout is most prominently known in New Zealand historiography for her very public role 
in the British suffrage campaign between 1909 and 1912 and indeed, this is where I first caught a 
glimpse of her.  I was immediately intrigued.  How did a New Zealand woman come to feature so 
prominently in British women’s history?  Why had I never heard of her before?  I met Anna again in 
the course of working with the White Ribbon material during my Honours Research Exercise on the 
ideological exchange between British, New Zealand and American women activists in the late 
nineteenth century, where she featured over and over again, vigorously engaging and debating her 
colleagues in the early women’s movement.  Anna was everywhere and yet nowhere.  A flurry of 
publishing for the centennial of New Zealand women’s suffrage produced the most substantial work 
up to that time: Raewyn Dalziel’s earlier piece for The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography was 
reprinted in The Suffragists and Sandra Coney prepared a profile of Anna Stout’s work in England as 
part of her suffrage centennial work Standing in the Sunshine: A History of New Zealand Women 
Since They Won The Vote. 2  Three years later, Roberta Nicholls included a more tantalizing look at 
Anna’s England years and a closer look at her role in reinvigorating the National Council of Women in 
her work The Women’s Parliament: The National Council of the Women of New Zealand 1896-1920.3   
But still the question remained: who was Anna Stout and how did such a woman come to be leading 
the contingent of enfranchised women in a 10,000 strong procession in the heart of London?  There 
had to be more to the story.4 

1 Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters, Life and Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 132. 
2 Raewyn Dalziel, ‘Anna Paterson Stout’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography 1870-1900, Vol. 2, 1993; Sandra 
Coney, Standing in the Sunshine: A History of New Zealand Women Since They Won the Vote, Auckland: 
Penguin Books, 1993; Claudia Orange (ed),  The Suffragists: Women Who Worked for the Vote, Wellington: 
Bridget Williams Books Ltd, 1993, pp. 137-43. 
3 Roberta Nicholls, The Women’s Parliament: The National Council of the Women of New Zealand 1896-1920, 
Wellington, Victoria University Press, 1996, pp. 89-116.  More recently, Anna receives a brief mention as the 
‘most prominent public figure’ of the women’s suffrage period in David Hackett Fischer, Fairness and Freedom: 
A History of Two Open Societies, New Zealand and the United States, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 
241-42. 
4 As recently as the Winter, 2014 edition of the Journal of Women’s History, an in-depth article on the 
Australian feminist Vida Goldstein and her role in the British suffrage movement completely excludes any 
mention of Anna Stout, although Anna and Goldstein worked closely together, co-founding the Australian and 
New Zealand Women Voters Association in London and jointly leading the Australian and New Zealand women 
contingents of the massive 1911 women’s suffrage procession.  See Clare Wright, ‘”A Splendid Object Lesson”, 
A Transnational Perspective on the Birth of the Australian Nation’, Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 26, No. 4, 
Winter 2014, pp. 12-36, particularly pp. 25-6. 

 

1 
 

                                                           



Lady Anna Stout was, in fact, a leading figure in the New Zealand women’s movement and a highly 
vocal champion of the advancement of women throughout her life.  As a woman of Liberal ideology, 
she held firmly to the conviction that women and men were equal in responsibility and therefore 
should have equal opportunities.  Her life work was dedicated to this end: to raise women’s 
awareness of their potential and to ensure their protection and equal representation before the law.  
Although her role as wife of the Premier and later Chief Justice made her a public figure in her day, it 
was the deliberate use of this proximity to power and her own, multi-faceted work that made her a 
force in her generation.5  Even as she celebrated the moral superiority of women as wives and 
mothers, Anna championed their mental equality and variously challenged, criticised and beseeched 
them to use it.6  Based on the material she chose to bequeath in her personal papers, it is this work 
that she wished to be remembered by. 

Anna Stout presents a challenge to the historian. In physical appearance, with her air of dignity and 
feminine reserve, she appears to be the ideal wife of a prominent political husband.  But as one rolls 
back the historical record, one finds a controversial and even polarizing figure willing to use the 
media to publicly denounce a Premier or challenge her contemporaries.  Why has the story of such a 
prominent woman not been told at length prior to this time?  Does the answer give insight into New 
Zealand women’s historiography?  From these initial questions came others: what was the nature of 
Anna’s relationship with the other, leading women of her generation?  There were in fact many 
women active to varying degrees in the New Zealand women’s movement, but Anna stands out for 
the breadth of her involvement as well as her willingness to use her title to further her political and 
social aims.  Additional questions that this thesis will seek to answer are: what was the nature of 
Anna and Robert’s relationship?   How are we to understand Anna’s bold and unflinching public 
persona in an age that favoured women in a quiet, subordinate role?  How should history interpret 
her contribution to the evolving public discourse on the role of women in society? 

In answering these questions, this thesis seeks to add to our understanding of the women who 
worked beyond the initial goal of female suffrage to influence women’s understanding of their 
potential and their place in New Zealand society.  In doing so, we also consider whether their actions 
helped to push New Zealand society as a whole further along the track of equality and 
egalitarianism.  In focusing in particular on the life work of Lady Anna Stout, a Liberal and prominent 
feminist, we primarily hope to gain a better understanding of one of the best known women of her 
generation.   

Given the considerable amount of material available and the many years in which both Anna and 
Robert Stout feature so publicly in New Zealand, this thesis has had to limit itself to attempting a 
broad understanding of Anna’s contribution to New Zealand history with close studies of selected 

5 Roberta Nicholls and Dorothy Page note in particular the loss of the benefit of Anna’s influence when she left 
the National Council of Women after just one year.  ‘National Council of Women of New Zealand, 1896-1906, 
1916-‘, in Anne Else (ed), Women Together, Wellington: Daphne Brasell Associates Press, 1993, p. 82. 
6 Raewyn Dalziel’s, ‘The Colonial Helpmeet’ is still a foundational argument in this regard.  How Anna’s actions 
both affirm and challenge Dalziel’s argument is discussed in more detail in chapters three and five.  Raewyn 
Dalziel, ‘The Colonial Helpmeet: Women’s Role and the Vote in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand’, New 
Zealand Journal of History, Vol. 11, Issue 2, October, 1977, pp. 112-23. 

 

2 
 

                                                           



aspects of her life based on a study of her personal papers and relevant primary and secondary 
material.  Considering the scope of Robert’s political and legal work, the numerous organizations 
with which Anna was associated and the number of people with whom this brought them into 
contact, it would be impossible to analyse in detail her relationship with all of the people who were 
so important to the forming of modern New Zealand.  Indeed, it is the breadth of her relationships 
and influence that this thesis hopes to impress upon its readers.  It does not, therefore, attempt a 
close study of the Stouts’ private lives or living conditions, focusing rather on their ideology and 
public service.  A study of this scope naturally unearths additional material that would lend itself to 
further study.  Some of those topics include the Stouts’ relationship with the extended Atkinson-
Richmond clan, the political nature of At-Homes and salon culture in early New Zealand, the role of 
the Lyceum Club of London as a centre of women’s activism, and Anna’s sometimes contentious 
relationship with Kate Sheppard, just to name a few.   

This thesis is arranged according to the key themes in Anna’s life, rather than attempting to follow a 
traditional chronology.  This approach reflects both the nature of the primary and secondary 
material available and the areas that were of greatest import in Anna’s life.  It is designed as a 
portrait of a lady and early feminist rather a comprehensive image, and like a portrait, what is left 
out often tells as much about the person as what is included. 

Time and place feature prominently in an understanding of Anna’s life, and this is the focus of 
chapter one.  New Zealand developed rapidly from colony to Dominion in Anna’s life span of 1858 to 
1931 and the general awareness among its pioneers that they were establishing a new society 
features prominently in her views.7  Chapter two considers the importance of Anna’s immediate and 
extended family, including the role of the Scottish clan in their family identity, the influence of the 
Macgregors and how, in turn, the Stouts and Macgregors influenced the development of New 
Zealand. Chapter three undertakes a close study of several of Anna’s keynote speeches and 
publications, revealing in more detail the strong Liberal ideology which drove her work.   Anna was 
primarily an activist on behalf of women and the breadth of her work in this area is examined closely 
in chapter four.  Anna’s nearly four years in England from 1909 to 1912 at the height of the British 
suffrage movement was a watershed event in her life.  The importance of the timing of this trip, as 
Anna reached maturity as a political wife and mother, are highlighted and the surprising nature of 
her ‘conversion’ to suffragette is examined in chapter five.    

When this topic was first conceived, it was assumed that source material would be limited and that 
the subject would need to be inferred from marginal references, with a strong use of reading 
between the lines to glean a picture of Anna.  In fact, the very opposite has proven to be the case.  
Anna’s strong public profile and the wonderful resource of Papers Past has meant a plethora of news 
reports, articles, editorials and letters both by and about Anna.  The Anna Stout collection of papers 
at the Hocken Library has formed the starting point.8  Anna formed this collection at the end of her 
life, which focuses on her areas of work and interest while omitting any journals or personal letters.  
Additionally, the Stout Family Papers held at the Alexander Turnbull have contributed significantly to 

7 W. David McIntyre, Dominion of New Zealand: statesmen and status, 1907-1945, Wellington: New Zealand 
Institute of International Affairs, 2007.  Originally a crown colony, New Zealand was recognized as a Dominion 
in September, 1907 by proclamation of King Edward VII.   
8 Anna Stout Papers, ARC-0021, DU:HO. 

3 
 

                                                           



our understanding of the extended Stout family and their place in national history.9  A significant 
addition was made to the collection in 2013, extending the material relevant to Anna and her 
children, with further additions as late as October, 2014 which have yet to be fully catalogued or 
studied.  Thus there is scope for additional work on the Stout family on many levels.  

Biographical writing as history has passed in and out of favour through the generations.  While 
traditional biographies have often focused on ‘great’ men and women and received a strong 
following among the public, there have also been periods, as in America in the early twentieth-
century, when biographies were out of favour.10  There is also a risk that biographical writing, 
particularly early, compensatory biography, can end in a kind of pseudo-history without proper 
critical analysis.11  Social history in recent times has gone some way to advocating the value of the 
common woman and man, but has had limited reach in the realm of biography.12  There are, 
however, many other ways to interpret a subject’s life. 

The political scientist and philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote that biography ‘has become the 
classical genre for the lives of great statesmen’ and not typically ‘suitable’ for those who’s ‘main 
interest lies in the life story.’13  But Arendt also acknowledged that a well-written biography has the 
potential to force ‘the colourless light of historical time...through...the prism of a great character so 
that in the resulting spectrum a complete unity of life and world is achieved.’14  In Arendt’s example, 
the character of Rosa Luxemburg and her influence on her contemporaries was the compelling 
motivation to write her life story, not the success (or in Luxemburg’s case, failure) of her ideas and 
leadership.   

In contrast to the ‘exemplary heroines’ standard, American historian Joan Scott advocates an 
alternative technique: 

…I think of them (women) as sites…where crucial political and cultural contests are 
enacted…to recognize the many factors that constitute her agency, the complex and 
multiple ways in which she is constructed as a historical actor.15 

Biographies of wives of notable men face additional hurdles as they seek to overcome the (usually) 
extensive body of work written on their husbands and create a clear picture of the woman as an 
individual.  Just as women’s names and legal personas were absorbed into that of their husbands, so 
too have their identities often been lost to the historical record.  Where there is evidence, it is often 

9 Stout Family Papers, MS-Group-2213, WTU. 
10 ’Biography Yanked Down out of Olympus’: Beard, Woodward and Debunking Biography’, Pacific Historical 
Review, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Nov. 1983), pp. 403-27. 
11 Compare Nancy Isenberg, 'Founding Mothers, Myths and a Martyr’, Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 19, No. 
3, Fall, 2007, pp. 185-94  and Gerda Lerner, ‘Placing Women in History: Definitions and Challenges’ in The 
Majority Finds its Past, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 145. 
12 In contrast, Nick Salvatore argues for the affinity inherent in biography and social history in ‘Biography and 
Social History: An Intimate Relationship’, Labour History, No. 87 (Nov. 2004), pp. 187-92. 
13 Hannah Arendt, ‘A Heroine of the Revolution’ from Men in Dark Times, New York Review of Books, Oct 6, 
1966. 
14 Ibid. Compare with Liz Stanley’s analogy of biography as a kaleidoscope rather than a microscope, The 
Auto/biographical I: The Theory and Practice of Feminist Auto/biography, Manchester: Manchester University 
Press, 1992, p. 158. 
15  Joan Wallach Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, Cambridge: Harvard 
University Press, 1996, p. 16. 

4 
 

                                                           



viewed through the prism of their husband’s actions; the woman as extension of the man. This has 
been equally true of Anna.16  Fortunately Anna Stout was a significant personality in her own right 
and left a considerable amount of material for the historian, both in her personal papers and in the 
media and organizational records of her time. 

The works of Mary Ritter Beard and Gerda Lerner have been influential in forming the theoretical 
framework of this thesis.  Beard’s is a voice unknown to many today, much to our detriment.  She 
advocated a different view of women in history, one of force and influence regardless of social 
standing.  She found women at work shaping and directing the outcome of their generations from 
the earliest nomadic humans to the modern day office girl. Beard was the first to argue that the 
contribution of women to human development ‘cannot be found by treating them only as victims of 
oppression.’17    In Beard’s reading of history, the female half of the population were as fully engaged 
as the male half in the making of history; the challenge was to know where to find them. 

Beard was primarily a lone voice in her generation in her advocacy for women as force and not 
victim.  In her enthusiasm to promote what she considered a more realistic view of women in history 
she downplayed the very real social and political challenges that women have historically faced.18  
For this reason I view Beard’s work as a starting point to a fuller understanding of women, not the 
finish line. 

The more recent scholarship of Gerda Lerner has been influential in rehabilitating the ideas of Mary 
Beard. A self-professed student of Beard’s ideas, Lerner contributed significantly to the early 
development of women’s history.19 The questions she and her colleagues asked of the historical 
record have opened doors to greater understanding. They also widened the field of primary material 
through the inclusion of institution records, hospital records, letters, diaries, autobiographical 
sources and even anthropology and sociology. 

Following this example, I have extended my research to include aspects from the modern fields of 
psychology and management leadership, specifically in relation to women.  The findings of Bernard 
M. Bass have been particularly helpful for their elaboration of the concepts of transformational 
versus transactional leadership.20  While early historiography has often looked for women acting in 
the male-dominated paradigm of transactional leadership in order to assess their contributions to 
society, I believe it is in the transformational model that we will find most women working and 
influencing events of their day.21  They were networkers before the term existed.  Transformational 
leaders deliberately seek to influence outcomes through close, personal contacts whereas 
transactional leaders stand off or above and are more interested in measurable outcomes rather 
than changing minds and attitudes.22 In order to achieve their aims of political and social equality 

16 In particular, see Megan Hutching, Leading the Way: How New Zealand women won the vote, Auckland, 
HarperCollins, 2010, pp. 247-51 and Eric Olssen, A History of Otago, Dunedin: McIndoe, 1984, p. 95. 
17 Lerner, p. 148. 
18 Mary Ritter Beard, On Understanding Women, New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1931, p. v. 
19 Lerner,pp. xxi-xxiii. 
20 Bernard M. Bass, The Bass Handbook of Leadership, New York: Free Press, 2008.  Compare with Beverly 
Alimo-Metcalfe, Leadership and Gender: A Masculine Past; A Feminine Future?, University of Leeds, 2002 and 
James MacGregor Burns, Transforming Leadership, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003. 
21 Gerda Lerner reinforces this concept in Why History Matters, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 109 
and pp. 119-20.  
22 Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe, pp. 4-6. 

5 
 

                                                           



women understood that hearts and minds had to be won over, a process which takes time and is 
often difficult to measure.  Earlier writings may argue that women relied on inspiration or influence 
because these were the only avenues open to them while the corridors of power were closed.  In 
contrast, this paper will argue that many of the women activists of the nineteenth and early 
twentieth century were acting from their own positions of strength as they built networks such as 
the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in Britain or the Women’s Christian Temperance 
Union.  The question of whether women’s use of influence to achieve their aims is a result of their 
natural state or an artificial social construct is outside the scope of this thesis.  It is sufficient to say 
here that influence used deliberately to effect change is now recognized as a legitimate and effective 
tool.   

New Zealand women’s historiography since its advent in the 1970s has come a long way in writing 
women’s stories into the fabric of the nation’s history.  Beginning with the early, consciously feminist 
works of Barbara Brookes and Charlotte Macdonald, which were influenced by their close proximity 
to the American women’s history scene of the 1970s, the body of work has grown in breadth and 
depth.23  Margaret Tennant’s extensive work on women’s organizations has particularly focused 
attention on the grass-roots, nation-building efforts of women, an important step in understanding 
how women have demonstrated force in their generations.24  Recent historians such as Katie Pickles 
have taken women’s experiences further, applying transnational and gender frameworks to their 
analysis and most recently Angela Wanhalla has pushed the borders further with her analysis of  
inter-racial marriages.25 

The work of these and many more historians demonstrate clearly what Beard and Lerner 
consistently advocated; that women were and are forces in history.  Our task as historians is to find 
the material which will allow us to understand them in the context of their time as they exerted their 
influence and were in turn influenced by the events of their generations.  It is here that we find Anna 
Paterson Stout, a leading force for women in her generation. 

  

23 Rachael Bell, ‘The Development of a Feminist Historiography in New Zealand, 1970-1999’: unpublished BA 
(Hons) Research Exercise, Massey University, 2002, p. 5.  See Barbara Brookes, Charlotte Macdonald and 
Margaret Tennant (ed), Women in History 2, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1992 and Charlotte 
Macdonald, The Vote, The Pill and the Demon Drink, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1993. Raewyn Dalziel, 
‘The Colonial Helpmeet: Women’s Role and the Vote in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand’, New Zealand 
Journal of History, Vol. 11, Issue 2, October, 1977, pp. 112-23 is still a foundational text for New Zealand 
women’s historiography and is treated in more depth in chapters three and five. 
24 Gerda Lerner considered institution-building to be the most significant achievement of American women.  
This is equally true of New Zealand women.  See Lerner’s article ‘Midwestern Leaders’ in Living with 
History/Making Social Change, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009, pp. 85-102 for an 
exploration of how American Midwestern leaders carried forward practical development by focusing on 
multiple areas of need and interest such as property rights reform, divorce reform and education 
advancement.  Just two of Tennant’s many works include: A Voice for Mothers: The Plunket Society and Infant 
Welfare 1907-2000, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003 and The Fabric of Welfare: Voluntary 
Organisations, Government and Welfare in New Zealand, 1840-2005, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 
2007. 
25 Katie Pickles, Female imperialism and national identity : Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, New York: 
Manchester University Press, 2002 and Transnational Outrage: The Death and Commemoration of Edith Cavell, 
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.  Also Angela Wanhalla, Matters of the Heart: A History of Interracial 
Marriage in New Zealand, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2013. 

6 
 

                                                           



 

Figure II:  Lady Anna Stout, 1882, Burton Brothers, Dunedin, reference Port 1508, (c/nE6631/6A), 
reproduced with permission of the Hocken Library, Dunedin, New Zealand.  Hocken Collections, Uare 
Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago. 

7 
 



ANNA’s WORLD:  COLONY TO DOMINION 

 

The fundamental element which frames our understanding of Anna Stout is not the people she 
worked with, her Liberal ideology, the number of children she bore nor even the fact that New 
Zealand was the first nation to give women the vote.  It is the time period through which she lived.  
Secondly, it is the two cities that dominated her life: Dunedin and Wellington. 

Anna was a native born Pakeha, a child of ‘explosive colonisation’ and a woman of New Zealand’s  
progressive era.1Between 1840 and 1882 alone, European population surged from 2,000 to 
500,000.2  Additionally, by luck she was born in Dunedin, the wealthiest city in New Zealand during 
her childhood, fuelled by gold and enterprising Scots.  This combination early on brought her into 
contact with Robert Stout, the other fundamental influence in her life, ideas and subsequent public 
work.  This chapter attempts to understand the importance of time and place on Anna as well as 
outline the numerous relationships that subsequently developed with the leading personalities of 
New Zealand history. 

At the time of Anna’s birth in 1858, New Zealand was a collection of mini-colonies and settlements 
where the Maori population still outweighed that of the colonists. The colony of Dunedin, with a 
population of 1,700, was already ten years old, but conditions were still extremely challenging.3 
Geography was one of these challenges and played a significant role for many years in New 
Zealand’s development.  Settlements were isolated by mountains, rivers and deep forests.4 Mail 
took months to arrive from other parts of the colony, frequently encountering a bottleneck in 
Lyttelton, the southern-most point in the general government’s delivery system at that time.   
Everything had to be built from scratch, another challenge common to settler communities: a jetty 
for unloading cargo and passengers, roads for transporting, houses, churches, schools, hospitals.  
There were very few horses in the early years; nearly everyone walked on unfinished roads with no 
footpaths. 

Dunedin’s settlement in 1848 was led by Captain William Cargill, the chief agent for the New Zealand 
Company and the Reverend Thomas Burns, the colony’s primary spiritual and moral leader and 
nephew of the famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns.5  Although the majority of settlers were of 
Scottish origin, there were also a significant number of English immigrants.  The amount of work 
needed to make Dunedin a viable community made for a long reading list.  Water had to be drawn 
from nearby streams or springs.  The first city pumps, proposed in 1857, had still not arrived by 
1859.6  The condition of the roads was particularly daunting. As Jane Burns, daughter of Thomas 
Burns, observed with great understatement upon her first landing in Dunedin in 1848 ‘... being 

1 James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders, Auckland: Penguin Press, 2001, p. 11. 
2 Ibid., p. 17. 
3 Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, Auckland: Penguin Books, 2003, p. 207. 
4 If John Logan had wanted to travel to Auckland the year Anna was born, the fastest route would have taken 
him fifteen days. King, p. 231.  
5 Otago was a Scottish Free Church settlement, modelled on the New Zealand Company settlement in 
Wellington.  King, p. 172. 
6 A.H. Reed, The Story of Early Dunedin, Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1956, p. 167. 

8 
 

                                                           



winter, the mud was deep, and our surroundings exceedingly uncomfortable.’7 In 1858, the year of 
Anna’s birth, High Street was still ‘all but impassable for wheeled traffic.’8   

Settler societies share a number of common traits, among which are inequality in ages, reduced 
class barriers and gender distribution.9  These traits had a direct bearing on Anna’s development as 
well.  The early social mixing which she experienced helps explain Anna’s willingness to work with a 
wide variety of people even after she reached social prominence as Lady Stout.  

New Zealand was overwhelmingly a colony of young adults and children during the period of Anna’s 
childhood.  Only 0.28 percent of the population in 1881 was over the age of 65 and only 17 percent 
(excluding Maori) were over the age of 40.10   In gender distribution, Cargill and Burns shared the 
same goals as the organizers of other New Zealand Company settlements.  All were keen to promote 
family immigration as well as young, strong men and women.  Nevertheless, there was a particularly 
significant imbalance of gender among the Scots of Otago.11  The small world of young Anna was 
dominated by the sounds of men with a myriad of Scottish and English accents.  Among these men 
came a young teacher, Robert Stout, from the isolated Shetland Islands.12  Their language and 
customs were unique among the Scots and for this reason many of them formed business 
partnerships and support networks in their new homeland. The significant Scottish connection of the 
Stouts and Logans will be explored in more detail later in this work. 

At the same time, large immigration plans were reaping results.13  An additional two thousand 
immigrants to Otago arrived in 1858, requiring the construction of large immigration barracks.  
Housing was constantly under pressure, with frequent shortages during the arrival period of new 
immigrants.14  The demand, however, also increased the value of building sites.  By the year of 
Anna’s birth, nearly half of the town’s quarter-acre sections had been sold and the more desirable 
locations had increased up to a thousand pounds from the original ten shillings.15  The increasing 
revenue from the sales enabled the Provincial Council to allocate more funds to infrastructure, even 
before the gold rush, thereby accelerating Dunedin’s development.   

7 Barbara Harper, Petticoat Pioneers, Book Three, Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1980, p. 20. 
8 Ibid., p. 166. 
9 Frances Porter and Charlotte Macdonald (ed) My Hand Will Write What My Heart Dictates, Auckland: 
Auckland University Press, 1996, p. 5-7. 
10 Brad Patterson et al, Unpacking the Kists: The Scots in New Zealand, Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2013, 
p. 39. 
11Ibid., p. 68. Once gold was discovered the imbalance changed even more significantly.  Between 1860 and 
1863 Otago’s population increased six-fold, from 12,691 to 76,965.  Three quarters of these arrivals were men 
between twenty and thirty-four. 
12 Patterson, p. 63. Immigrants from Scotland’s Far North comprised the smallest percentage of Scottish 
immigrants to Otago. 
13 Local provincial governments promoted assisted-immigration schemes sporadically between 1853 and 1870 
to increase the number of desirable immigrants.  Domestic servants figured highly in this regard.  An ambitious 
immigration plan introduced by the central government, which came to be known as ‘the Vogel scheme’ after 
Julius Vogel, colonial treasurer, then Premier, ‘drove arrivals to record highs.’ Patterson, p. 25.   
14 Anna’s early and personal exposure to New Zealand’s critical need for immigrants in order to achieve a 
sustainable level of economic independence left her with a permanent awareness.  In 1912 she was still 
advocating New Zealand as a desirable destination for immigrants. See Evening Post, 19 February, 1912. 
15 Reed, p. 147. 

9 
 

                                                           



If conditions were primitive, a spirit of self-help, hard work and cooperation was widespread, values 
which are clearly evident in Anna’s life and ideology.16  Indeed, with so much work needed to get the 
settlement in to a viable condition, there was little time for recreation.  This necessity combined 
with the ingrained Scottish propensity for hard work compelled the editor of the Witness in 1858 to 
remind his fellow townspeople to take a break from their work: 

Business-business-uncompromising business appears to be the very soul of our 
community...We are convinced that in no colony in New Zealand are the means for public 
amusement and recreation so utterly neglected as in our own.17 

Lack of opportunity may not have been the only factor in the community’s reputation for lack of 
entertainment.  The editor of the Witness wrote in 1860 that ‘Enthusiasm is a feeling which the 
settlers of Otago never give way to...This peculiarity of character renders Otago one of the dullest of 
dull places in the world.’18 Dull it may have been, in the editor’s opinion, but Dunedin also early 
gained a reputation for philanthropy and generosity, a trait the Stouts also became well-known for.19   

In February, 1860 the Reverend Donald M. Stuart arrived in Dunedin with his wife and three 
children.  Dr. Stuart, as he was known, officiated the wedding of Robert and Anna in 1876, remained 
a life-long friend and was one of the settlement’s best known residents.  At his funeral in 1894 six 
thousand people participated in his procession.  He made Knox Church, on the corner of Frederick 
and Great King Streets, his home church.  This beautiful building was just a few blocks from Anna’s 
home on London Street and would have been a regular feature of her weekly routine. 

In keeping with the tradition of Scottish Enlightenment’s emphasis on inquiry, education was highly 
valued in this Presbyterian and Scottish-dominated colony.  There was an urgent need to establish 
quality schools to cater for the growing number of immigrant families as well as native-born children 
such as Anna and Alexander Logan.  In 1863 a high school for both girls and boys was established. By 
1870 the first high school for girls in the Australasian colonies had been established.  Otago Boys’ 
High School was established in 1863 and the University of Otago in 1871, the first university in New 
Zealand.20 

Anna was too young to understand the importance of a singular event which occurred when she was 
just two years old, but it was the most significant development in Otago’s history and would 

16 Anna repeatedly applied the concept of self-help to women’s development. One manifestation of this are 
her numerous hand-written notes inside her 1852 copy of Proceedings of the Woman’s Rights Convention 
(1851, Worcester, Mass) in regards to self-help. Of particular note on page 30 Anna pencilled ‘!!!’ next to a 
paragraph by the American activist Lucy Stone calling on women to help themselves; to stand up and boldly 
use their talents. Anna Stout Papers, MS-0244, DU:HO. 
17 The Witness as quoted in Reed, p. 147. 
18 The Witness as quoted in Reed, p. 153. 
19 This is discussed in more detail in the chapter on Family.  The Otago settlement may have been one of the 
most geographically isolated in the British Empire, but they had a strong relationship with and interest in the 
affairs of the Empire. In 1857 almost 500 pounds were raised to support the widows and orphans of the war 
with Russia and the following year 365 pounds were sent to London for the Indian Mutiny relief fund.  In 1861 
relief funds were provided for an event closer to home; 1,100 pounds were raised to alleviate suffering in the 
Maori-settler war in Taranaki.  Reed, p. 141. 
20 Robert Stout had a particularly close relationship with the University of Otago, becoming Chancellor in 1903.  
J.C.Beaglehole, The University of New Zealand, an historical study, Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1937, p. 
154. 

10 
 

                                                           



transform her small town into a ‘rowdy and riotous city.’21   Gold was discovered in the bed of the 
Mataura River in 1860 and again at Lindis in 1861.  The gold rush that would be the making of 
Dunedin and its province really began, however, with Gabriel Read’s strike in Tuapeka in 1861.  
Word quickly reached the gold fields of Australia and California, sparking a rush of miners and 
overnight towns.  There followed a decade of immigration and prosperity which resulted in a 
population of over 18,000 by the time Anna married in 1876.22  The gold rush also brought Richard 
Seddon and Julius Vogel to New Zealand, two men who would play a prominent role in Anna and 
Robert’s lives. 

The discovery of gold accelerated the development and confidence of the young province 
exponentially.  The Otago Daily Times, the first daily paper in New Zealand, launched its inaugural 
issue on 15 November, 1861 with a lengthy article, written by Julius Vogel, reviewing the 
development of Dunedin up to the time gold was discovered.  The palpable relief of the settlers that 
the difficult early days were now past was reflected in the editor’s concluding comment: ‘The 
unfolding of the golden wealth of the Province has been like the divulging of a fairy tale to the major 
portion of the inhabitants.’23 John Logan was undoubtedly congratulating himself on his decision to 
remove to the Antipodes when he did as the economic fortune of the Scottish settlement took off.  
The same inaugural ODT issue reported the delivery of 35,000 ounces of gold under close escort, the 
largest delivery to date, as well as reporting the amounts of gold on board various departing vessels.  
It was not just the miners who had gold fever.  As Vogel wrote: 

...the feelings of wondering doubt have given way successively to started joyful amazement 
and to unquestioning confidence...Business in every branch is prospering in town; the inland 
navigation is being opened up, and a large and enterprising population is permanently 
locating itself on the gold fields.24 

In all, 21 million pounds worth of gold made Otago New Zealand’s ‘richest and most populous 
province’ in the 1860s, with Dunedin at its centre.25  This confident, bold and energetic environment, 
where anything seemed possible, was Anna’s heritage.26  It also reinforced the family’s belief that 
hard work and integrity brought its due rewards.  As some of its earliest settlers, the Logans were 
well known to the Burns and the Cargills and played a central role in the social life of the community.  
For example, the daily routine of the Logan household on London Street was disrupted in 1863 when 
the Reverend Thomas Burns, his wife Clementina and his large family came to live with them.  The 
church manse, only a year old, was being demolished in order to excavate the hill where it was 
located as part of the reclamation project.27 

From their home on the nearby hills, the Logans observed the transformation of ‘the Flat’ swamp 
lands into the communities of Caversham, St. Kilda and Kensington, among others, as revenue 

21 Erik Olssen, A History of Otago, Dunedin: John McIndoe, 1984, p. 66. 
22 King, p. 207. 
23 Otago Daily Times, 15 Nov, 1861, p. 2. 
24 Not everyone embraced gold fever. Costs of basic provisions soared, some of the founding fathers were 
ambivalent and the Witness expressed regret at the social impact. See Julius Vogel, by Raewyn Dalziel, 
Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986, p. 34. 
25 Olssen, p. 69. 
26 Olssen, pp. 66-70. 
27 Harper, p. 23. 

11 
 

                                                           



flowed into the provincial coffers.  Centres of light industry were established by 1874 through the 
Hillside Railway Workshops, tanneries, quarries, the Wax Vesta match factory, breweries and 
bakeries, with accompanying social and domestic implications.28  Dunedin’s rapid development, 
subsequent strong industrial position (by 1890 it was the colony’s most industrialised city) and 
position as the chief port city of the South Island also meant that the labour issues and socialist 
politics debated in the Logan household and in society at large, maintained their urgency through 
close proximity.   

It would be impossible to name all the people, renowned or otherwise, that Anna and Robert 
worked with or influenced during their Dunedin years.  They were close colleagues with leading 
social reformers such as Harriet Morison, the founder of the Tailoresses Union.29  Robert was the 
legal representative of William Larnach, local MP and wealthy developer.30 Anna early learned the 
benefit of influence as Robert’s role as local MP brought them connections such as Downie Stewart, 
James Macandrew and William Earnshaw.31  Their prominence in temperance circles made them 
colleagues of Sir William Fox, four times Premier of New Zealand and founding president of the New 
Zealand Alliance in 1886 and the Rev. L.M. Isitt.  And of course there was Julius Vogel. 

In the same year as Read’s strike in Tuapeka, Julius Vogel arrived from London via Australia to work 
as a journalist. He established the Otago Daily Times, New Zealand’s first and longest running daily 
newspaper, where his editorials had significant influence on public issues and debates.32 He became 
a prominent member of Dunedin at a critical time in its development.   Vogel was to have a 
significant impact on the development of New Zealand in general and the Stouts in particular.  Like 
Stout and many men of his day he was highly ambitious and saw New Zealand as the place to make 
his name.  As Treasurer under various ministries from 1869-1887, including the Stout-Vogel 
government of 1884-1887, he spearheaded an ambitious program of infrastructure development.  
The first telegraph line between the North and South Islands had been laid in 1866 but now a boom 
of road building, railroads, telegraph lines and bridges ensued, fully supported by Robert Stout. 

The census of 1874 reveals there was also a sizeable Chinese population (4%) in Otago.33 Drawn by 
the gold fields and almost exclusively male, many would go on to establish market gardens around 
Dunedin.34  It is possible that Anna and her mother bought from these Chinese gardeners, some of 
whom sold door to door, or at least had practical knowledge of them.  Many years later, Anna would 
take a very public stand in opposition to her husband and other leading politicians in support of 

28 Barbara Brookes and others, Sites of Gender: women, men and modernity in Southern Dunedin, Auckland: 
Auckland University Press, 2003, p. 18-21. 
29 A volume of newspaper clippings relating to the Dunedin Tailoresses Union is in the Anna Stout collection.  
The inside cover notes the volume was formerly the property of Harriet R. Morison.  Anna Stout Papers, MS-
0982/783, DU:HO. 
30 Stout, Larnach, Ballance and Vogel formed an unlikely business alliance to promote the New Zealand 
Agricultural Company, using their influence in Wellington and London. The repercussions of this questionable 
alliance of politics and business led to a bitter relationship with Sir George Grey and contributed to Larnach’s 
subsequent suicide in 1898. See ‘Agricultural Company and New Zealand Politics’ by D.A. Hamer in Historical 
Studies: Australia and New Zealand, Vol. 10, Issue 38, 1962, pp. 141-64. 
31 Earnshaw, a strong prohibitionist, was ‘one of Stout’s few consistent supporters in the House after 1893.’ 
Hamer, p. 186 
32 Raewyn Dalziel, Julius Vogel: Business politician, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986, p. 38-39. 
33 King, p. 208. 
34 Brookes, p. 36. 

12 
 

                                                           



Chinese immigrants, citing them as hardworking.35  The census also reveals a notable lack of Maori in 
the Dunedin community.  Rapid assimilation into European culture and population is the primary 
reason given.36  Records indicate that the mainly British settlers’ contact with Maori was limited to 
cultural displays. Very few had any significant contact with individual Maoris in their marginalized 
capacity.  The overall lack of racial diversity caused one person to refer to Dunedin as ‘the whitest 
city in New Zealand.’37This lack of practical contact with Maori, coupled with her own Liberal 
ideology, influenced Anna’s future understanding of interaction between ethnic groups. 

The development of New Zealand’s political landscape is a theme that predominates throughout 
Anna’s life, both directly and indirectly.  During Anna’s childhood, Dunedin operated under the 
provincial system of government, whereby the provinces were primarily responsible for their own 
affairs.  Although a bicameral Parliament was also in place, the real power rested with the provinces 
due to their success in ‘finding workable coalitions of interests and personalities.’38  The provincial 
system came to its end in 1876, the year of Anna and Robert’s marriage, amid much controversy and 
dispute.39 The following year, through a combination of Vogel’s aggressive infrastructure spending, 
falling wool prices and a period of worldwide recession, New Zealand entered into sixteen years of 
what came to be known as the ‘Long Depression.’40 The resultant unemployment, poverty, 
exploitation of women and children workers and fear of the social evils that dominated in England 
created a favourable environment for the social experimentation for which New Zealand became so 
well known.41It also coincided with the rise of party politics and the Liberal party’s triumph of 1891.  
Throughout this period, the Liberal M.P., Robert Stout, was heavily involved in politics and the public 
arena, eventually becoming Premier in a surprising coalition with Julius Vogel in 1884.  The record 
shows Anna worked closely with Robert throughout this period, sharpening her understanding of 

35 Otago Daily Times, 18 April, 1896.  Anna defended Chinese immigration during the inaugural National 
Council of Women meetings in 1896.  As the majority of Chinese settled in Otago and Westland, Anna was one 
of the few women on the Council in a position to speak from experience on the question.  King, p. 175.  Robert 
Stout wasn’t the only prominent New Zealander to speak against Chinese immigrants.  The Stouts’ long-time 
friend and Liberal politician, William Pember Reeves, described them as ‘dirty, miserly, ignorant…and a danger 
to public health.’  See Meg Tasker, ‘William Pember Reeves, Writing the Fortunate Isles’, Journal of the 
Association for the Study of Australian Literatures, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2013, p. 5. 
36Ibid., p. 37. 
37Ibid., p. 38. 
38 King, p. 202. 
39 Robert was a fierce defender of the provincial system but came to see the value of a central government.  
Hamer theorizes that Stout’s ‘conversion’ was influenced by Vogel and their shared financial needs of the New 
Zealand Agricultural Company.  David Hamer, The New Zealand Liberals: The Years of Power 1891-1912, 
Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988, pp. 20-21. 
40 Robert Stout and John Ballance were members of Grey’s cabinet but soon fell out over the New Zealand 
Agricultural Company.  See also Belich, Paradise Reforged, p. 32 on the ‘Long Depression’ which he 
characterizes as the ‘Long Stagnation’. 
41 Among these ‘experiments’ were women’s franchise, old age pension and arbitration. Stout and William 
Pember Reeves worked closely together on the conciliation committee during the maritime strike of 1890. 
Dunn and Richardson, pp. 132-33.  See also Belich, Paradise Reforged, p. 44-5.  As a result of its ‘experimental’ 
social legislation, New Zealand became an object of interest to such social reformers as the British Fabians 
Sidney and Beatrice Webb, the American Progressive Henry Demarest Lloyd and the French writers Andre 
Siegfried and Albert Metin.  Fisher, Fairness and Freedom, p. 312.  Robert Stout corresponded for a time with 
Lloyd. Henry Demarest Lloyd Papers 1840-1937, Box 5, Wisconsin Historical Society. 

13 
 

                                                           



parliamentary practice and the value of influence. With Robert’s knighthood in May, 1886, she 
became Lady Stout at the age of twenty-seven.42 

From 1877, with the abolition of the provincial governments, political power swung more fully to  
Wellington, the city destined to be Anna’s second home.  As the tide of the southern gold rush was 
ebbing, Wellington was rising to prominence as the centre of government.  In her capacity as Mrs. 
Robert Stout and later Lady Stout, Anna’s life also transitioned from Dunedin to Wellington, 
although she would maintain close links to Dunedin for the remainder of her life. 

The Wellington that Anna moved to permanently in 1895 was no longer a small, pioneering 
settlement but the political centre of the soon-to-be Dominion.43  It was also a city undergoing 
significant change.  Between 1896 and 1921 the population alone grew from 41,758 to 107,488.44 
From this point onwards the historical record demonstrates a more public and forthright Anna as 
Lady Stout, with a marked increase in media coverage.  Her active role in women’s organizations also 
increased exponentially and is discussed in detail in a separate chapter.  Although she had lived in 
Wellington off and on during Robert’s tenures as MP and then Premier, 1895 was a fortunate time to 
be settling permanently in the capital city.  Economic growth was again underway, the Liberals were 
in power and the question of women’s place in society was moving into a new phase with the 
passing of the Franchise Bill of 1893.  By 1895, as an experienced mother, political wife and Lady, 
Anna was ready to thrive at the centre of political and social action. It was here that her influence 
could best be brought to bear. 

Anna played a prominent and public role in her own right, as an activist, feminist and social reformer 
and this work forms the majority of this paper.  However, it is important to note that the public 
profile which she achieved in her lifetime was significantly possible as a result of her role as the wife 
of Sir Robert Stout, Premier, MP, Attorney-General and Chief Justice.  Critically, it was Robert’s high 
profile that brought Anna into contact with the leading personalities of her day such as Seddon, 
Grey, Vogel, Ballance, Pember Reeves, Sievwright, Lord and Lady Ranfurly, Lord and Lady Liverpool, 
even Dr. Truby King and Dr. Duncan Macgregor.  Primary historical evidence encourages and 
facilitates the study of the organizations which resulted from these contacts. This is the realm of 
traditional history writing. What are harder to quantify, but equally important, are the private 
functions, dinners and At-Homes which facilitated and progressed these outcomes; the realm of 
influence.  James Belich calls this ‘gentry power’ with strict limitations unique to New Zealand’s 
egalitarian atmosphere.  He writes that ‘…gentry power was exercised more as a class, through the 
institutions of government, than by individuals.’45 Through Robert’s numerous public and political 
roles many of the key issues of early New Zealand touched the Stouts and vice-versa.  Even when he 
was out of power, for example, in the historic year of 1893, his close relationship with John Ballance 
enabled him to influence policy.  Another example is Robert’s close work with Sir Apirana Ngata and 

42 Dunn and Richardson, pp. 103-04. 
43 New Zealand’s status officially changed from colony to Dominion on 26 September, 1907, an important 
symbolic shift, but one with minimal real change. See W. David McIntyre, Dominion of New Zealand: 
Statesmen and Status, 1907-1945, Wellington: New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 2007. 
44 David Hamer & Roberta Nicholls, The Making of Wellington 1800-1914, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 
1990, p. 218. 
45 James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders, Auckland: Allen Lane, 2001, p. 22. 

14 
 

                                                           



the Young Maori Party; in all of these areas, Anna, too, brought her public and private influence to 
bear. 

The public aspect of Anna’s influence began in earnest after the family’s move to Wellington in 1895. 
It was here that she gained a reputation for her At-Homes.  In their simplest form, At-Homes were 
obligatory social visits, often limited to fifteen minutes that carried with them a strict protocol.46 
There were other, private At-Homes by invitation only which marked a special event such as the 
arrival of a relative from overseas. These At-Homes were frequently reported in the media with 
details of the guest list, floral arrangements and music.  With the arrival of the Liberals and a 
growing awareness among leading women of their public duties, the nature of the At-Homes also 
changed to a greater emphasis on discussion of current political and social issues.  These were the 
modified Anglo versions of the earlier French salons, an accepted venue for exchange of ideas and 
civilized debate between men and women and were very common.47 

At-Homes were also an opportunity to demonstrate one’s position in society.  Anna would have 
been very aware that the success of these events reflected on Robert as well as her.  In the case of 
Anna and other leading politician’s wives, their At-Homes were also opportunities to showcase 
refinement in the Antipodes when visiting British dignitaries arrived.  In early 1913 the Dominion 
reported Lady Stout’s At-Home for Miss Newcombe and Miss Hodge, women’s suffrage workers 
from Britain.  Politics may have been on Anna’s agenda, but she also understood the importance of 
atmosphere and presentation. The media reports show her extensive and strategic use of colourful 
flowers and greenery to convey her political message: 

Lady Stout received her guests in the library and from there they overflowed into the hall 
and into the large drawing room.  In this room the suffragette colours, green, purple and 
white, were largely to be seen in the flowers with which it was decorated…In the library 
were the anti-suffrage colours, red and white dahlias in large bowls decorating the mantel 
piece…48 

In 1914 Anna hosted a particularly grand At-Home for the visiting British MP Philip Snowden and his 
wife, whom Anna had known well in England.  One reporter of the event wrote: 

Lady Stout’s receptions are always well arranged and interesting, and on Saturday there was 
a large number of people, political and professional, who found Mrs. Snowden the easiest 
person to talk to...49 

In New Zealand, and particularly in Wellington, At-Homes had a distinctively political focus.  During 
their England years, Anna’s letters to her sons included lively and entertaining episodes from some 

46 See Hamer & Nicholls, p. 200. These were important occasions to welcome new-comers to the community 
and to strengthen relationships within the upper strata of polite society.  The wives of prominent early 
Wellingtonians understood this ‘positive duty’ to maintain ‘the acquaintances and friendships of their 
husbands.’ 
47 Not all At-Homes were formal events. Grace Neill was well known for her own, more humble, events where  
politicians, journalists, and even working women shared a biscuit and tea while debating the issues of the day. 
See J.O.C. Neill, Grace Neill: The Story of a Noble Woman, Christchurch: N.M. Peryer, 1961, p. 31. 
48 Dominion, 11 March, 1913. This list of attendees includes Mrs. A.R. (Lily) Atkinson, a young colleague from 
the Southern Cross Society, as well as the WCTU and NZ Alliance. 
49 Manawatu Standard, 21 October, 1914. 

15 
 

                                                           



of her At-Homes.50  These events also frequently reached the media.  As early as 1898, Anna was 
well known in the social circles of Wellington.  A London correspondent is reported in the Auckland 
Star as follows: 

In Wellington, nearly every lady….known outside her home circle is a more or less 
enthusiastic politician.  In consequence…society is much more political than literary, musical 
or artistic…  A conversazione…is a favourite method of propaganda…The two ladies of ‘light 
and leading’ in the Empire City are Lady Stout, one of the prettiest women in New Zealand, 
with bright lustrous eyes and a soft, sweetly toned voice, and Mrs. Kennedy 
Macdonald…Both suggested that pleasing features and tasteful dresses are by no means 
inconsistent with an active interest in public movements.51 

What this author was seeing was the social manifestation of a political eclipse as a result of the 
Liberals coming to power in 1890, a change which reflected the wider egalitarian wave rising in the 
country as a whole and a diminishing of the power of the old, wealthy ‘gentry’ who had closely 
followed the social structure of England with its emphasis on closed social circles.52  

Yet, while the political establishment may have changed, the importance of social events as centres 
of influence continued. In this regard, Anna settled permanently in Wellington at a propitious time. 
Liberal hostesses like Anna Stout continued with At-Homes that featured elaborate floral 
decorations and music, but now the discussions among the women and men were increasingly 
political.  Her adoption and extension of polite, high-society norms like the At-Home to promote her 
wider political and activist programs was a triumph of the previously controversial New Woman.53  
Never content to be a demure political wife, she helped to make educated, emancipated women 
socially influential and acceptable. This was one of Anna’s greatest achievements:  to advance first-
generation feminist philosophy politically, socially and institutionally through her influence in the 
highest levels of New Zealand Liberal political circles.  As Roberta Nicholls writes: ‘The actions of 
rebellious elite women in negating the belief that women should spend their lives as mere 
appendages to men sent ripples through conservative society.’54 

As part of their permanent move to Wellington, the Stouts built a large home at 238 The Terrace, an 
address that placed them in the heart of Wellington politics and society.  This visible manifestation 
of their success reflects a conflict inherent within Liberal thinkers and leaders:  how to reconcile 
material success with egalitarian philosophy?  On the one hand, they could argue (as did the 
conservatives also) that financial success was the natural reward for independence and hard work.  
On the other hand, the Liberals had used the accumulation of wealth by the conservative land 
owners to justify their political overthrow.  While there was no easy answer, one solution was to co-

50 ‘Robert Stout to Sir Robert and Lady Stout’, Stout Family Papers, MS Papers-0183-06, WTU. 
51 Auckland Star, 5 July, 1898. 
52 Hamer & Nicholls, p. 222.  The Liberals were not purely or consistently egalitarian and in fact their individual 
and collective rise to power, influence and wealth brought with it its own contradictions.  Stout, for example, 
felt compelled to explain his acceptance of his knighthood in 1886 as recognition for hard work, rather than as 
an entitlement. 
53 The definition of the ‘New Woman’ ranged from the lampooning cartoons prior to the achievement of 
women’s suffrage to the high ideals of intelligence, service and duty which Anna favoured.  Anna’s definition of 
the ‘New Woman’ is explored in more detail in chapter three. 
54 Hamer and Nicholls, p. 224. 

16 
 

                                                           



opt the norms and traditions of upper society to promote their views. Another was to harness the 
community pride that might follow (even begrudgingly) when one of their members rose to 
prominence. Robert wrestled with this line of thinking when offered a knighthood in 1886, after 
having previously publicly denounced those who sought after titles and advancement.55  But Robert 
was an ambitious and intellectual colonist who had demonstrated his intentions by being willing to 
retrain for the law and returning to further study even after being articled as a lawyer. New Zealand 
was a place where one could get ahead and after all, it was a long way to go to not end up better off 
for the effort. 

While Anna made the most of the opportunities afforded to her as Lady Stout to further women’s 
development, she was also loyal to Robert. An offence to him was an offence to her. In this regard, 
the early, ambivalent relationship between Stout and Richard Seddon progressed to rancour over 
the succession to Premier after the death of John Ballance.  This then developed further into a 
sustained public and private battle.  Indeed, it became deeply personal.  Seddon knew that Ballance 
had wanted his close friend, Stout, to succeed as Premier and he worked to marginalize his ‘most 
effective political opponent.’56  Additionally, Tom Brooking, Seddon’s recent biographer, writes that 
Louisa Seddon and Anna ‘loathed each other.’57  Nor was Anna one to sit quietly by.  She publicly 
refused to participate in the grand reception afforded the Seddons upon their return from the 
Queen’s Jubilee in 1897.  The Evening Post had published a list of prominent citizens organizing the 
Seddon’s reception and mistakenly included Anna’s name.  In true Anna style, she penned a heated 
letter to the editor demanding the error be remedied and refusing to have any part in publicly 
acknowledging Seddon, whom she accused of heading a government ‘which avowedly has no moral 
conscience.’58 

Anna moved in the vanguard of publicly active women.  Both politically and socially astute, she used 
her title and position to promote her ideas.  While she was a strong activist in the early feminist 
movement and promoted radical ideas for her day, she does not appear to have embraced the more 
radical public images of bicycle riding or wearing split skirts.  Nor is there any evidence that she 
followed such fashion trends as the wearing of diamond earrings set by Lady Plunket.59 Anna’s focus 
was political and she used her position and connections to influence political behaviour on behalf of 
women, as in the case of her letter to Lady Ishbel Aberdeen in 1920 requesting her influence on 
behalf of the reviving National Council of Women of New Zealand: 

…if you will use your influence with the government by seeing that our next Governor’s wife 
should be a lady who has knowledge and sympathy with women’s aims…with strong support 
from the King’s Representative we should be able to overcome the apathy that prevails.60 

During her years in Wellington Anna worked or associated with such key personalities as members 
of the Atkinson/Richmond clan who were prominent in Liberal political and social fields and Grace 
Neill the first woman inspector of factories and later inspector of hospitals, asylums and charitable 

55 Dunn and Richardson, p. 103-04. 
56 Tom Brooking, Richard Seddon: King of God’s Own Country, Auckland: Penguin Books, 2014, p. 180. 
57 Brooking, p. 182. 
58 Evening Post, 23 August, 1897. 
59 Hamer and Nicholls, p. 204. 
60 Lady Stout to Lady Aberdeen as quoted by Roberta Nicholls, The Women’s Parliament: The National Council 
of the Women of New Zealand, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1996, p. 114. 

17 
 

                                                           



aid under Dr. Duncan Macgregor, the Stouts’ close friend and mentor.  Anna personally knew and 
entertained most of the Governor-Generals and their wives as well as the business, political and 
social leaders of New Zealand’s capital city. The length of her years of influence meant she also 
worked with the next generation of women leaders such as the Henderson sisters and Kate Edger.61  

Through the fortune of her birth to a financially comfortable family in pioneer Dunedin, to her 
marriage to one of the colony’s rising political figures which took her to the highest levels of political 
influence, Anna Stout consistently used her connections to advance the cause of equality between 
men and women.  She lived through the formation and rapid development of one of the world’s last 
western nations and experienced first hand its transformation from horses and sailing ships to cars, 
steam ships and even the early years of aviation.  Her proximity to the centres of power and 
influence gave her a unique opportunity among women in early New Zealand, a role which she was 
willing to exploit to its fullest.  Along the way she campaigned with, worked with, hosted or even 
publicly opposed a significant number of the names and personalities that now form the backbone 
of our national history, earning herself a high public profile in her own time.  The story of how and 
why she influenced New Zealand’s history is told in the following chapters. 

  

61 Kate Edger was the first woman in the British Empire to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. See Beryl Hughes, 
'Edger, Kate Milligan', from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New 
Zealand, updated 30-Oct-2012.  Elizabeth, Christina and Stella Henderson were all well-known second-
generation feminists.  Elizabeth became the first woman MP for New Zealand, Stella the first woman lawyer 
and Christina a teacher, prohibitionist and social reformer. 

18 
 

                                                           



 

 

 

Figure III:  Lady Anna Stout in wedding dress, 1876, Clifford and Morris, Dunedin, Reference Port 
1506, (c/nE6631/7A), reproduced with the permission of the Hocken Library, Dunedin, New Zealand.  
Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago.

19 
 



FAMILY LIFE 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, full summ’d in all their powers, 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 

Self-reverent each and reverencing each 

Distinct in individualities 

But like each other ev’n as those who love1 

 

On Monday, December 27, 1876 in the lovely, two storey home of John and Jessie (Janet) Logan at 
number 75 London Street, Dunedin, eighteen year old Anna Paterson Logan married the 32- year- 
old barrister and rising politician Robert Stout, thus linking the Logan and Stout Dunedin clans.  A 
description of her in her wedding dress notes ‘her dark eyebrows and brilliant hazel eyes contrast 
with the gold of her hair.’2  From this time forward historical records know her as Mrs. Robert Stout 
or Lady Stout.  But she was much more than this.  Before she ever became a wife and mother she 
was a daughter, sister, niece, native-born New Zealander and a vibrant member of the Logan family. 

Anna was born 29 September, 1858, the second child of John and Janet (Pollock) Logan to be born in 
New Zealand, and their second daughter.  Her brother, Alexander, had preceded her by three years 
and a sister, Violet was ten years her elder. A younger sister, Jessie, would also be born to the 
Logans.  (It would be Jessie Logan who would act as official witness at Anna’s marriage to Robert.)   
According to tradition, John and Janet arrived in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1854 on the Phillip Laing, 
the same ship that had delivered Captain Cargill and the first boatload of settlers just six years 
before.3  Mr. Logan found work as clerk to the superintendent of the Otago province.  Their first 
home was known as ‘Violet Grove’ or Fern Tree Cottage. While not part of the wealthier class in 
Otago, they lived comfortably and had sufficient income to invest in property and business ventures.  
The home at 75 London Street, built in 1872 while Anna studied under Margaret Burns at the Otago 
Girls’ Seminary, is described as ‘beautifully constructed, with oak floors and ceilings, Persian tiled 
fireplaces and appointments.’  The twenty-room house stood for over sixty years.4 Anna’s upbringing 
was sufficiently cultured to allow her to move comfortably and confidently in later years among the 
political and social leaders of Wellington and London. 

In addition to their physical well-being, the Logans were a principled, thinking family.  If time and 
location constructed the framework of Anna’s life, it was progressive ideology which formed her 
foundation.  The Presbyterian principles of service and duty to the betterment of society, as well as 
reason and individualism, were central to the Logan family as well as to the Otago settlement.   
Given their early migration to the young Otago settlement, it is likely that these ideals were a 

1 Lady Anna Stout, ‘Southern Cross Society: Its Objects’, 1895, Anna Stout Papers, MS-0271, DU:HO. 
2 Family books: Logan, Beck, Pickford, Misc – MS – 0328, DU:HO. 
3 In conflict with this traditionally accepted record, the Stout Family Papers donated to the Alexander Turnbull 
Library in 2013 include a letter from the Otago Early Settlers Association recording the Logans arriving on Eliza, 
9 March, 1854, not the Phillip Laing as stated in most other secondary material, MS 11518-132, WTU. 
4 Family books: Logan, Beck, Pickford, Misc – MS – 0328, DU:HO. 

20 
 

                                                           



principal motivation for John and Janet to move over half a world away from home, versus those 
who followed the migration trail after the discovery of gold or due to economic hardship at home.5 It 
was these values, coupled with the opportunity to put them into practice in a new colony that 
developed Anna’s view of the world and motivated her actions throughout her life.  Anna’s sense of 
duty was particularly strong, both to family and to women.  In a family that valued debate and 
inquiry among all its members, Anna was raised to consider that not only was a woman capable of 
intelligent argument, but that it was her duty as well.  Throughout her work as a champion of 
women, Anna consistently challenged, cajoled and even badgered women to improve their minds as 
part of their duty to their families and society.  It has been argued that Anna’s sense of duty to her 
family resulted in her making less of a contribution to the women’s movement in New Zealand than 
she could have otherwise.6  Yet it is this very principle that defines Anna and is central to 
understanding her life and actions. 

In addition to the influence from her own close-knit family, it has been noted that Anna was 
profoundly influenced by her own teacher, the first headmistress of the Girls’ Provincial School, 
Margaret Burn.   Raewyn Dalziel writes that Mrs. Burn ‘gave Anna ideals by which she measured her 
own and others’ behaviour for the rest of her life.’  According to Anna these were ‘devoid of all 
snobbery, and were founded upon a clear estimate of the value of character and strength of purpose 
necessary to the attainment of true womanhood.’7  Margaret Burn is an interesting person in her 
own right.  Having immigrated as a widow to New Zealand with her three children in December, 
1870, she had already been the sole provider for her husband and children for many years as a 
teacher of high reputation in Australia, a fact that was highly unusual at that time.  In addition to her 
role as founding principal, an 1884 letter from the Reverend D.M. Stuart shows she was an active 
member of Knox Church and the wider Dunedin community.8 The curriculum that Margaret Burn 
established was wide for a girls’ school at that time.  As one of the original students, Anna studied 
English, geography, history, arithmetic, French and music. 9 In addition to her high standards and 
Christian ideals, Mrs. Burn exemplified the importance of women being able to earn their own 
income for their own sake and that of their family, a topic of life-long importance to Anna.   

In late 1865, when Anna was just seven years old, her elder sister, Violet, died.  This would be just 
the first of several significant deaths in Anna’s long life.  Although records are scarce on this topic 
and no details on her life are available, Violet is known to have been born in 1848 in Scotland.  Ten 
years of age when her sister, Anna, was born, it is likely that Violet was a significant person in Anna’s 
young life.   Violet Pollock Logan was named after her maternal grandmother.  She would have been 
six years old on the voyage out from Scotland and her loss at the age of seventeen was likely a great 
blow to the family.  Violet was the first to be interred into the Logan burial plot in the Southern 
Cemetery on 17 October, 1865.10  Violets feature regularly in the family history.  The Logan’s first 
home was known as Violet Grove in honour of their daughter and Janet’s mother, and violets were 

5 Brad Patterson et al, Unpacking the Kists: the Scots in New Zealand, Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2013,   
p. 259. 
6 Raewyn Dalziel, The Suffragists, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1993, p. 139. 
7 Ibid., p. 137. 
8 Margaret Gordon Burn Papers, Misc - MS-0538, DU:HO. 
9 Eileen Wallis, 'Burn, Margaret Gordon', from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara - The 
Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 5-Jun-2013, viewed 22 August, 2014. 
10 Anna and Robert each took responsibility for the establishment of a perpetual fund for their family plots in 
Dunedin’s Southern and Northern cemeteries respectively, Stout Family Papers, MS Papers 11518-093, WTU. 

21 
 

                                                           



the flower of choice at the Wellington wedding of Janet Stout, Anna and Robert’s youngest 
daughter, in 1918.   

The magnificent Gothic style Knox Church, with its blue-grey stone, was completed just a month 
before Anna and Robert married and has remained an iconic Dunedin building ever since.  As early 
members of Knox Church, it would have been a logical venue for their wedding.  However, while the 
Reverend Donald Stuart, widely admired in Dunedin, officiated, the wedding service was a private 
affair held in the Logan home.  Although weddings in private homes were common, it is worthwhile 
to note the significance in the case of the Logans.  Originally Presbyterian, after their arrival in Otago 
they began to distance themselves from organized religion, drawing closer and closer to the 
Freethinkers.  John Logan experienced a very public rupture with Knox Church in 1874 apparently 
over spiritualism, which was extensively reported in the Otago Daily Times. In spite of his defence, 
John Logan was expelled from his office as Deacon, as well as membership in the church.11  The 
whole family increasingly followed the Freethought movement and helped to found the Dunedin 
Lyceum, while continuing to hold to high personal, Christian standards of conduct.  John Logan’s 
rupture with Knox Church did not appear to negatively influence his own relationship with Reverend 
Stuart and certainly Anna and Robert remained close friends of Dr. Stuart throughout their lives. 

Early on the Logans were active members of Dunedin’s growing community. In particular, they were 
active members of the temperance and Freethought movements, as has been noted.  Just a few 
days after the sixth birthday of her first daughter, Margaret, and with baby John in hand, Anna 
watched as her mother, Janet, laid the foundation stone of the Dunedin Lyceum on April 30, 1882, a 
building which served as the headquarters of the Freethought Association.  Anna’s sister Jessie 
played in the brass band and Robert gave the keynote speech.   According to the news report Janet 
Logan was presented with a handsome silver trowel with an inscription commemorating the 
occasion.  According to the same account, there were a thousand spectators at the event.  By now a 
prominent MP and successful lawyer, Robert’s speech on this occasion gives useful insight into the 
logic and principles of the Freethinkers, as well as the central, governing principles in the life of the 
Logans and the Stouts. In outlining the founding of the organization Robert said: 

What, then, was to be the basis of our union? Practically speaking we had no basis. We… 
threw open our doors to all – a Catholic, a Jew, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Wesleyan, 
a Cambellite may join us…We look on religion not as a thing to be settled by authority but by 
truth.12   

He went on to defend science as the basis of truth and to defend what some called their ‘immoral’ 
lifestyle. He called for an increase in the secular basis of the State in order to guarantee true 
freedom and concluded with a call for faith in truth and progress.13 These same principles formed 
the basis of Anna’s ideology throughout her life and recur time and again in her speeches and 
writings. While this demonstrates the source of her willingness to work with members of all religious 
faiths, it is also the basis of a critical point of difference between Anna and a majority of the other 

11 Otago Daily Times, 21 January, 1874. 
12 Otago Daily Times, 17 October, 1881. 
13 Ibid. 

22 
 

                                                           



leading women of the early women’s movement, who centred their activism within their organized 
religions.14   

The founding of a modest Lyceum in the farthest point on the globe away from the politics of 
Westminster may seem an unimportant event, but was actually part of a much larger struggle taking 
place between liberal and conservative camps.  The previous year the Freethinker Charles Bradlaugh 
had won a seat in the British Parliament and requested leave to make a simple affirmation as 
opposed to an oath in the name of God.  His request denied, what followed was a five-year struggle 
between ‘tolerance and liberty’ and religious prejudice.15 The proceedings were followed closely by 
the Stouts and other Freethinkers in New Zealand who saw themselves as part of a vanguard of 
enlightened thinkers struggling against stagnant, antiquated ideas.  Their goal was to deliberately 
influence the founding institutions and laws of New Zealand along secular, liberal principles.  This 
conviction in liberal principles made both Anna and Robert bold in the face of opposition, whether 
advocating together for women’s suffrage or heading a contingent of marchers in London.  

Anna likely met her future husband through her brother.   Alexander received his early education at 
Shaw’s Private School, the same school where Robert Stout found his initial employment upon his 
arrival in Dunedin in 1864.16  A fellow Scotsman, Robert became a frequent visitor to the Logan 
home.  It is likely that his introduction to the family came through his role as Alexander’s teacher.  
But their shared ideologies and Scottish heritage would have ensured the relationship continued and 
developed.  Additionally, they shared a lifelong commitment to prohibition.  Mr. and Mrs. John 
Logan and Robert Stout were among the small group of just twelve attendees at a temperance 
meeting in Dunedin’s Oddfellows Hall in 1866.17  Anna, as a young teenager, would have followed 
these discussions and likely contributed to them as the years passed.  The shared ideology of the 
Logans and the Stouts as well as their friendly association during Anna’s youth was a significant 
influence on Anna’s development.  If Robert first met the Logans as early as 1864 or 1865 when he 
took up his post as teacher at Shaw’s School, Anna would have been just six or seven years old.  It 
could almost be said there was hardly a time in Anna’s memory that did not include Robert Stout.  
So while Robert would have had plenty of opportunity to get to know Anna through his association 
with her family, he was also in a position to influence her development.   It thus becomes difficult to 
unravel the threads of Anna’s own ideologies, at least in her early years.  There is a profound 
similarity of viewpoint between Anna and Robert which is understandable when one considers their 
early association.  This makes an analysis of Anna’s later years and her points of departure from 
Robert’s opinions particularly interesting.  Most noteworthy, however, is how often they were 
indeed in agreement with one another. 

Given Robert’s long association with Anna and her family, any understanding of Anna requires a 
closer study of her husband than is possible in this thesis.  The records, however, indicate a close 
and mutually-respectful relationship between Anna and Robert.  Looking back over their lives on the 
occasion of their golden wedding anniversary, a reporter asked Lady Stout the secret to a successful 

14 This is discussed in greater detail in chapter three. 
15 Peter J. Lineham, ‘Freethinkers in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand’, New Zealand Journal of History, April, 
1985, Vol. 17, Issue 1, pp. 61-81. 
16 Logan Family Papers, MS-0328, DU:HO. School records indicate Alexander consistently achieved top marks. 
17 Rev. J. Cocker and J. Malton Murray (ed), Temperance and Prohibition in New Zealand, London: The Epworth 
Press, 1930, p. 255. 

23 
 

                                                           



marriage. After a characteristically humorous quip, Anna replied in all seriousness in words that 
nicely summarize her long marriage:  ‘pick a good man and take an interest in each other’s work.’18   

Like many a young wife, it appears Anna longed for more ‘juicy’ letters that reflected Robert’s 
thoughts and feelings;19 nevertheless the few existing letters from the early years of their marriage 
demonstrate genuine affection, with Robert showing concern over Anna’s health after the birth of 
their first child, Margaret, and even offering her advice on the child’s care.  In one letter from 1879, 
Robert replies to Anna’s concern over Margaret’s sleep by saying ‘I fancy no one can feed her and 
put her to sleep so well as I can.’  And in an earlier letter from May, 1878, just one month after 
Margaret’s birth, Robert writes that after receiving a worrying letter from Anna he ‘could not rest 
until I had telegraphed.’20 Robert was absent for much of Margaret’s first year and both he and Anna 
were anticipating his stay in Dunedin for June and July of 1879.   

Robert’s letters, which always began with ‘my darling Anna’, were also full of news on his Wellington 
experiences, including the privilege of taking Lady Normanby into dinner, the dreadful weather and 
the loneliness of returning to his single dwellings.  He and Anna shared observations on the people 
they had contact with, (a habit they continued throughout their lives) including several meetings 
between Robert and William Harrison, an American lawyer whom Robert described as a ‘very 
intelligent man and pleasant.’21  In a previous letter, Anna had written to Robert that Mrs. Cargill had 
called on Anna. Anna must have made some comment about hypocrisy in her letter, because Robert 
replies that he agrees with what she said about ‘the hypocritical …society.’  He goes on to say ‘still 
living in peace with a slice of hypocrisy is better than war.’  He finishes by saying they will discuss the 
name of the baby (Margaret) when he returns to Dunedin.  It is clear that Robert enjoyed the 
professional challenge and recognition that came with his ministerial duties in Wellington, but that 
he was also committed to his young family.  The tone of his correspondence with Anna reflects his 
position as both husband and father: attentive, concerned and also slightly authoritative.  In addition 
to family discussions, Robert also gives private advice to Anna regarding her father’s investment in 
the Fernhill Coal Mine. Robert was concerned that his father in law was financially overexposed.22  It 
appears that in the early years at least, Robert made the financial decisions.  Before his expected 
return to Dunedin in mid-1879 he writes to Anna that any decision regarding lodgings should wait 
until his arrival.  Although Anna went to Wellington with Robert initially in 1877, it appears from 
these letters that Anna lived with her family at the time of Margaret’s birth.  The language of the 
letters reveal much about the close nature of Anna and Robert’s relationship through the sharing of 
ideas, gossip, family news and affection.   

Anna was raised with a philosophy which encouraged individual development and equality, but lived 
in a society that expected women to marry and fulfil the role of dutiful wife and mother.  How did 
Anna reconcile these two apparently contradictory forces?  In Anna’s thinking, there does not 

18 Family books Vol. 1: Logan, Beck, Pickford, Misc – MS – 0328, DU:HO. 
19 Waldo Hilary Dunn and Ivor L.M. Richardson, Sir Robert Stout: A Biography, Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 
1961, p. 55. 
20 ‘Letters to Anna Stout’, Stout Family Papers, MS Papers 11518-103, WTU. 
21 Both Anna and Robert maintained a life-long interest in America, and passed this on to their children.  On 
their return from their medical studies in England in 1913, Robert and Duncan travelled across America and 
spent time with the famous doctor and founder of the Mayo Clinic, Dr. William Mayo.  Manawatu Times, 21 
November, 1913. 
22 ‘Letters to Anna Stout’, Stout Family Papers, MS Papers 11518-103, WTU. 

24 
 

                                                           



appear to be any conflict.23  Anna was not a radical individualist, but she was radical.  So while Anna 
was indeed a keen wife and mother, she did not stop there.  She fully embraced the notion that 
women had the right to develop their abilities and this is where she reconciled her ‘conflicting’ 
forces: in service to others.  Throughout her life she worked tirelessly to achieve the full 
development of women on political, social and domestic levels.  Her intensity was well known by her 
family and the public.  There are sufficient references in the primary records to show that Anna’s 
strong personality also frequently resulted in tension or offence with her colleagues.  Lily Atkinson, a 
co-founder of the Wellington Plunket Society, was known to often be at loggerheads with Lady 
Stout.24  This also helps to explain Anna’s early departure from the National Council of Women; 
certainly the tone of the debate of that inaugural 1896 session shows Anna as forthright and pro-
active.25  Anna was never one to back down from a debate or to shy away from public statements. 

She has been variously described in the press as enthusiastic, spirited, energetic and possessing a 
keen sense of humour.26 In this she mirrored Robert, who was known for his ‘superabundant energy’ 
and relentless drive to achieve.27   The description of Anna by Helen Wilson, a close family friend, is 
worth quoting more fully: 

She was vital, impressive, graceful and decorative and full to overflowing with the milk of 
human kindness…She was cruelly deaf but she handled her ear-trumpet with such appealing 
grace that she made it almost an ornament.  She was frank to a degree and that she did not 
often give mortal offence was due not so much to her sweet disposition as to the ingenuous 
sincerity with which she said things other people would have left unsaid.28 

Such energy was not boundless, however.  In a particularly touching letter from her son Duncan, 
written in 1921 on the eve of a second journey to England with Robert, Anna was feeling 
discouraged and tired.  Duncan encouraged his mother: 

You are fit enough to stand things for another thirty years but you so exhaust your nervous 
volatility by your almost furious energy that at times one wishes you feel done for like it 

23 In this regard, Anna’s actions agree with and also extend the argument made in Raewyn Dalziel, ‘The 
Colonial Helpmeet: Women’s Role and the Vote in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand’, New Zealand Journal of 
History, Vol. 11, Issue 2, October, 1977, pp. 112-23.  This is argued more fully in chapter three. 
24 ‘Waitangi Foundation: Bringing the Records Home’, fMS Papers 4923-1, WTO.  This comment may say more 
about tensions perceived by the writer due to the strong nature of both women, than any real offense.  Lily 
Atkinson worked closely with Anna for many years in the WCTU and the Southern Cross Society as 
demonstrated later in this thesis. 
25 Otago Daily Times, 18 April, 1896. 
26 Anna Stout Papers, Misc-MS-0467/004, DU:HO. 
27 Dunn and Richardson, p. 24. 
28 Helen Wilson, My First Eighty Years, Hamilton: Paul’s Book Arcade, 1955, p. 152.  Wilson’s widowed mother, 
Emma Ostler, formed a close friendship with Robert and Anna Stout who extended their help to her three 
children as they reached adulthood.  Emma Ostler achieved financial independence as a result of hard work, 
frugality and several property developments.  She and her youngest daughter were also in London at the same 
time as Anna and accompanied her to several key events, including the 1910 coronation procession.  See New 
Zealand Herald, 18 April, 1922 for obituary by Sir Robert Stout of Mrs. E.B. Ostler, whom he described as 
surpassing all others in courage and determination. 

25 
 

                                                           



makes everybody else feel the same… Volatile people full of energy like yourself always have 
their up and down such as the …lazy people never get.29 

Anna’s family and the family of her brother Alexander remained close and their lives frequently 
overlapped.  After attending Otago University as one of its earliest pupils, he was articled to his 
brother-in-law’s law firm, Sievwright and Stout.  His youngest son, born in 1886, was named Robert 
Stout Logan.  Alex had spent some time in Melbourne, Australia where he met and married Mary 
Wilson Masson.  Alex is one of the official witnesses on the birth certificate of Anna’s third son, 
Duncan, in Wellington in 1885 and the record shows that he was living in Wellington as well.30 Their 
relationship, with its mixture of professional and personal elements, is indicative of the Logan-Stout 
family as a whole.  There are numerous occasions where family members looked after one another 
and involved themselves in each others’ personal and professional business.  The Logans and the 
Stouts were not unique in this regard.  Extended families often looked after one another, particularly 
in colonial circumstances.31 What is unique, however, is the degree to which several members of this 
family rose to prominence in influencing the founding of their colony. 

No understanding of Anna is complete without a consideration of her role as mother.  Her first child, 
a daughter, was born in 1878 and the last child, also a daughter, was not born until 1894.  During 
these nearly seventeen years, Anna would run the gauntlet of maternity five more times, bearing 
four healthy sons and twin boys who lived one hour, just long enough to be registered in the Births, 
Deaths and Marriages catalogue.  How Anna juggled childbearing, childrearing and social and 
political activism is best understood on a timeline.  Some of the times of Anna’s greatest public 
activity correspond to the gaps between maternity.  In light of the numerous demands on her as a 
mother and the wife of a high-profile figure, it is a wonder Anna found any time at all to advocate for 
the advancement of women and the development of New Zealand as a whole.  The fact that she did 
so, and sustained this involvement for nearly fifty years is testament to her commitment and 
conviction.  It also helps explain her frequent frustration with women who did not concern 
themselves with their own economic and political development.  For Anna, based on her own 
experience, this was inexcusable.  

Robert and Anna were known to be generous with their time and their money, sometimes to a fault.  
An article in the Horowhenua Chronicle 7 December, 1916 reveals that Anna had worked closely with 
the women of New Zealand to collect and ship spare clothing to organizations in England and 
Scotland. This particular article reveals the latest shipment had gone to the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ 
Families’ Association of Edinburgh. It also indicates that numerous other shipments had gone out 
and more were planned.  This was at the height of World War I.  The members of the Wellington Bar 
noted Sir Robert for his generosity in their farewell speech on the eve of his departure for England in 
1921.32  Additionally, a letter among the Stout family papers to Dr. Robert Stout by an unknown 
writer makes reference to a purse of gold coins given to the writer by Sir Robert Stout on the eve of 

29 Stout Family Papers, MS – Papers-11518-130, WTU. 
30 ‘Birth, death and marriage documents’, Stout Family Papers, MS Papers 11518-093, WTU. 
31 This kind of support was not limited to immediate family members.  Robert’s first partnership, for example, 
with Basil Sievwright undoubtedly eventuated through their shared upbringing in Lerwick, Scotland. 
32 Evening Post,  12 April, 1921 

26 
 

                                                           



the author’s departure for Europe, which enabled the grateful recipient to maximize his European 
experience.33 

Education was o