STOUT, SIR ROBERT (1844-1930) was born at Lerwick, Shetland Islands, the son of Thomas Stout, a merchant and landed proprietor. He was educated in the parish school and at Lerwick Academy, where at the age of 13 he acquired such a sound grounding in general education, Greek, Latin and French that he was appointed a pupil teacher. At 16 he had passed his qualifying examinations, and two years later he completed his apprenticeship. He then determined to seek wider fields, chose New Zealand, and landed at Dunedin from the ship Lady Milton in Apr 1864. His first intention was to become a land surveyor, for which his study of mathematics and aptitude for that science specially fitted him. Finding no opening, however, he accepted a post as second master in the Dunedin Grammar School, with special responsibility for the teaching of mathematics. Soon he transferred to the North Dunedin district school (better known as the Stone school), which was at the corner of Union and King streets. He took part in the organisation of the profession and helped to found the Otago schoolmasters' association, which developed into the Otago Educational Institute.

In 1867 Stout decided to study law, and with that object entered the office of W. Downie Stewart (q.v.). In Jul 1871 he was admitted a barrister and solicitor, and shortly afterwards he entered into partnership with Basil Sievwright. Later he was head of the firm of Stout, Mondy and Sim, with which the most important part of his legal career was associated (his partners being George Mondy and William Sim, q.v.). Stout at once stepped to the forefront of the profession as a pleader. He was particularly successful in addressing juries, upon whose emotions he was able to work with consummate effect. Otago University having opened its doors in the year he was admitted to the bar, he lectured in law and also continued his studies. Attending the lectures in mental and moral science, he gained first honours for essays in these subjects but was defeated for distinction by R. Wilding. In the second session he was first in the political economy class. For three years (1873-75) he lectured in law.

In 1872 Stout made his first appearance in political life, when he was elected to represent Caversham in the Otago Provincial Council. He remained its member until the abolition of the provinces in 1875. In 1873 he became provincial solicitor (under Donald Reid) and he held that post throughout. He was a staunch supporter of the provincial system and to the end of his life believed that its maintenance would have conduced to the advantage of New Zealand. In 1875 Stout was elected to the House of Representatives for Caversham (defeating Larnach at a by-election following the resignation of Tolmie). At the general election at the end of 1875 he was second amongst eight candidates, his colleagues being Macandrew and Larnach, and the defeated candidates being Reynolds, Macassey, Sise, Grant and Armstrong. Entering politics from the first as an advanced Liberal, Stout made his first speech on 27 Aug 1875, a telling defence of the provincial system. His strong principles and undoubted ability were soon recognised by the Liberal leader (Sir George Grey), and in Mar 1878 he was invited to become Attorney-general in the first Liberal ministry. Macandrew was a member from the beginning, and Ballance had joined a few weeks earlier. In Jul Stout took also the portfolios of Lands and Immigration, and he administered these offices until 24 Jun 1879. It was an open secret that Ballance and Stout had seriously disagreed with the administration of Grey, and wished to escape from their responsibility. The ill-health of his partner at this time prompted him to resign in order to devote more attention to their practice, and he withdrew from Parliament a few months before the dissolution.

Stout remained out of Parliament for five years. At the general election in Jul 1884 he was again returned (defeating M. W. Green for Dunedin East by 755 votes to 515). Of the 91 members of the new Parliament only 4 desired Grey as leader, 33 wished for Vogel, 32 for Atkinson, and 15 for Montgomery. Seven had not declared their preference. Vogel was sent for, and after a week's consultation he submitted the following cabinet for the Governor's approval: Vogel, Stout, Richardson, Macandrew, Montgomery, Ballance, Morris and Whitmore. Taking office on 16 Aug, they survived only until the 28th, when they were defeated by the resentment of Auckland province, which had only one member in the ministry while Otago had three. There was no question of resigning office for good. Montgomery generously withdrew and Stout, who had been sent for, then took office as Premier, with Vogel as Treasurer and Postmaster-general, E. Richardson (Public Works), Ballance (Native Affairs, Lands and Defence), Tole (Justice), Buckley (Colonial Secretary) and Reynolds (without portfolio). On his return to the colony in Jan 1885 Larnach took over Mines and Marine. This arrangement, which placed the impetuous enthusiasm of Vogel in apparent subordination to the intellectual Premier, satisfied the uneasiness of the country on the point of expenditure. But Stout was not a sufficiently sound economist, or leader enough to curb him, and Vogel proposed in his financial statement to borrow a million and a half each year for the prosecution of public works. He also carried through a loan conversion and released certain accrued sinking funds. Ballance and Stout put through a reasonable instalment of Liberal legislation in the social sphere, notably the married women's property act, the police offences act and the workmen's wages act, together with useful goldmining legislation. Ballance tried some experiments in land settlement in the form of village groups, but these were to have their main utility as experience for the legislators of the next decade. His democratic convictions did not forbid Stout to accept a title, and he was created K.C.M.G. in 1886.

The general election of 1887 found the country still labouring under the depression, and again it was almost inevitable that the government of the day should suffer defeat. The action taken by the electors was drastic. Stout himself, standing for Dunedin East, was opposed and narrowly defeated by a brilliant, though almost unknown, opponent, James Allen. Several followers of the late ministry offered to resign their seats to enable him to return to Parliament, but he was again willing enough to enjoy a few years of respite, especially as the demands of his legal practice continued to grow. Ballance became the actual leader of the party in opposition. On this occasion Stout was six years out of politics, and in that period developments occurred which completely altered his prospect of future eminence. His Liberalism was directed mainly towards reform in legal, constitutional and political directions. He was an admirer of Bradlaugh as a champion of free thought, but did not share his fear of a new tyranny arising in the name of the state. In a policy speech on 10 Mar 1893 he declared himself a New Liberal, who believed in the state as an agent in the uplifting of humanity. His political attitude was, however, rather academic. If he had become the Liberal leader it would not have been socialism without doctrines, but more likely doctrines without socialism. In 1884 he did not approve of national insurance or giving all workers pensions; that should be left to voluntary societies. In 1892, when the subject had become a matter of practical politics, he proposed a liberal development of annuities through the Government Insurance department and companies, making it as simple for the thrifty man or woman to buy an annuity as to buy a pound of sugar or tea. He objected to single tax, and opposed the sale of crown lands.

The Liberal party coming back into power in 1890, Ballance took office as Premier, with adequate talent to take charge of all the portfolios. When he died (Apr 1893) there was a good deal of speculation in some quarters as to the prospect of Stout's returning to the leadership of the party, but his long abstention from Parliament during the formative years of the late eighties made that impracticable. An opportunity of re-entering the House did occur in a month or two, when R. H. J. Reeves resigned the Inangahua seat. Stout was returned.

He represented Inangahua only until the dissolution at the end of the year, when he was elected for Wellington City (with Bell and Duthie). Again in 1896 he was returned (with Fisher and Hutcheson). From the time of his re-entry into politics Stout held aloof from the Liberal party and with a few personal followers gradually drifted into opposition. He had stood for election in opposition, and his group might almost have taken the place of the Conservative party, which was at the time in a moribund condition. But at heart he was a Liberal. He saw much being done by the Government of which he fully approved, and his own interest was being diverted from general politics into the temperance movement, of which he was a leading advocate for many years. His rivalry with Seddon was never a real factor in politics, and any hopes his friends might have had of his return to the premiership faded towards the end of the nineties. It then became apparent that he was likely to transfer from politics to the Supreme Court bench, for which his personal qualities and his distinguished legal career better suited him. On 10 Feb 1898 he resigned his seat in Parliament, thus bringing to a close a political experience in the elective sphere extending over 26 years. A consistent Liberal throughout, he had enacted many measures for the amelioration of social conditions, for the improvement of the system of education and even in land legislation. His handling of the land act of 1877 had so impressed Atkinson that he appointed Stout to the Otago land board in 1882, and thus gave him an opportunity of fighting the system of dummyism that was prevalent in the province at the time.

Education commanded from Stout all the fervour and enthusiasm of the intellectual Scot. In the debate on the education bill in 1877 he made an eloquent plea for a secular system, on the ground that every one of the 90 religious sects in his own province would have their conscience violated if their taxes were used to teach what they believed to be religious error. As early as 1885 he advocated technical education. He was a member of the council of Otago University from 1891 until 1898, when he went to live permanently in Wellington. There he was one of the founders of Victoria University College, a member of its council (1900-15 and 1918-23), and chairman in 1900, 1901 and 1905. He was a member also of the senate of the University of New Zealand continuously from 1884, and chancellor from 1903 until his retirement in 1923. Though his interest in academic education was profound, Stout was throughout life a free thinker and an agnostic. During the early years of his legal career in Dunedin he was leader of the agnostic school of thought and spoke at many public meetings in the Lyceum hall (afterwards known as the Alhambra). He was a prominent freemason, but in 1891 became dissociated from the order on account of a manifestation of intellectual freedom. When he was a past assistant grand master of ceremonies and district grand master of Otago and Southland he came into conflict with the grand lodge by obtaining from the Grand Orient of France a warrant to open a lodge in Wellington (of which he was master). Apart from his offence against the constitution in acting without the warrant of the grand lodge of England, Stout was held blameworthy in that he had taken part in an invasion of British territory by a foreign masonic body many of whose members had been declared by the grand lodge of England not to be true and genuine brethren, inasmuch as they had admitted to the craft professors of atheism (1878). Stout admitted his fault, but was deprived of his rank under the English grand lodge. Throughout life he remained a freethinker. His Liberalism in politics persisted, but his active interest after returning to Parliament in 1893, and even after he was appointed Chief Justice, was in the temperance movement. In that he and Lady Stout were staunch and outspoken, demanding complete abolition of the liquor traffic. In an interview with W. T. Stead in 1909, Stout declared himself against the nationalising proposals in England: 'I am absolutely against it. I would have no parley or truce with the sale of poison even if it be labelled alcohol.' In 1893 he favoured direct local control of the traffic by local option, which would remove the question from the sphere of general politics.

Appointed Chief Justice on 22 Jun 1899 (in succession to Sir James Prendergast) Stout administered the office with distinction for 27 years, until his voluntary retirement on 31 Jan 1926. His broad scholarship, his profound knowledge of the law, and his humane and practical approach to its administration eminently fitted him for the highest judicial position. The Supreme Court act of 1882, he contended, made court procedure here simpler and more effective than in any other British possession. He had had charge also of the bill adopting Stephen's criminal code. He constantly proposed legal reforms and was insistent that in criminal cases (including murder) a majority verdict should be sufficient. The unanimous verdict required in New Zealand he considered tended to defeat the ends of justice. He was interested also in the reform of the procedure for appeals to the Privy Council. When that tribunal delivered its judgment in the Porirua appeal, Stout denounced in strong terms the dangers of a system of sending appeals from dominion tribunals to be decided by an empire court which was not acquainted with the law of the dominion and was therefore unable properly to interpret it. The outcome of the agitation thus initiated was an arrangement that in hearing cases remitted from dominion courts the Privy Council should, if possible, have sitting with it a judge from the dominion interested. In 1913 Sir Joshua Williams was appointed to represent New Zealand in this capacity on the judicial committee of the Privy Council. In 1921 Stout was similarly appointed, and he took his seat with the judicial committee and as a Privy Councillor after 1924. On four occasions while Chief Justice Stout acted as administrator of the government during the absence of the governor or governor-general (1910, 1912, 1920 and 1924). When he retired from the bench he was still, at 82 years of age, in full possession of his faculties and able to suggest further amendments in the law. Stout was for 15 years chairman of the prisons board until he was called to the Legislative Council. He was keenly interested in the Maori race, and acted as a royal commission with Sir Apirana Ngata (1907-09) to consider the best methods of dealing with native lands. While in the Government he was much interested in the Polynesian question, and urged repeatedly that the Pacific island peoples should be brought under British rule, and preferably under New Zealand administration. In 1885, when he was Premier, the Samoan chiefs begged for annexation to New Zealand. Stout and his colleagues were anxious to accede to their request, but were restrained by the earnest warnings of the Colonial Office from taking any action which might antagonise Germany. Stout was afraid that New Zealand and Samoan interests might be subordinated to distant considerations, and warned the Colonial Office that Samoa was likely to fall into German hands - a prediction that was fulfilled during the Boer war.

Devoted to literature, Stout was himself a graceful and forceful writer. During a visit to Great Britain in 1909 he attended the Darwin centenary at Cambridge and the tercentenary of Geneva University. He was made an honorary LL.D. of Manchester and Edinburgh Universities and an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford.

Stout married (1876) Anna Paterson (1858-1931), daughter of John Logan (1819-95). Born in Dunedin, she was keenly interested in the feminist and temperance movements, and during a stay in England (1909-12) took part in the female suffrage campaign. She was one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children and of the Plunket Society. Stout died on 19 Jul 1930, and his widow on 10 May 1931.

Otago P.C. Proc.; N.Z.P.D., pass. (notably 27 Aug 1875); N.Z. Law Reports; Brett's Auckland Almanac, 1879; Review of Reviews; Gisborne (p); Saunders (p); Reeves; Condliffe; Scholefield, Pacific; Who's Who N.Z., 1908; Beaglehole, Rossignol and Stewart; Otago Daily Times, 19 Jun 1879, 8 Jul 1884, 8 Mar 1895, 20 Jul 1930; N.Z. Times, 20 Jun 1879, 18 Aug 1911; N.Z. Herald, 14 Apr 1885, 15 Apr 1891, 24 Sep, 22 Oct 1892, 1 Mar 1893; Evening Post, 11 May 1931. Portrait: Parliament House; Supreme Court, Wellington.

Reference: Volume 2, page 173

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