Anna Paterson Stout was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1858 to Scottish Presbyterian parents, Jessie Alexander Pollock and her husband, John Logan, a clerk to the superintendent of the Otago province.

[1] Her parents were active in campaigning for social reforms, notably in the temperance and freethought movements, which had a life-long influence upon Stout.

[1] Robert's political career and legal practice did not progress smoothly, and the Stouts spent several years moving between Dunedin and Wellington.

Central to her social and political philosophy was the view that women should have equal rights with men and be free to develop their intellectual abilities to its fullest potential.

In Dunedin they were close colleagues of Harriet Russell Morison, and through the temperance movement with Sir William Fox, and also Julius Vogel.

Stout's role as the wife of the Premier, and later Chief Justice, made her a public figure, which afforded her access to the leading personalities of her day such as Richard Seddon, George Grey, John Ballance, William Pember Reeves, Margaret Sievwright, Lord and Lady Ranfurly, Lord and Lady Liverpool, even Dr. Truby King and Dr. Duncan Macgregor.

The following year she had a public dispute with the council over the venue of the annual convention and did not attend, although scheduled to present a paper on the responsibilities of parents.

[1] Stout supported the social purity movement, popular among women reformers in England and America as well as New Zealand.

She aligned herself with the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant wing of British suffragism founded by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst in 1903.

Stout worked to assure anti-suffragists that voting rights for women in New Zealand had not led to the collapse of society.

Then in 1918, she led a protest campaign against a police raid on a Wellington house and the subsequent trial of five women for allegedly running a brothel.