Hannah Stanton was born in Teddington, Middlesex on the 30 November 1913. She was educated privately at Summerleigh, Teddington, read English at University College London, and studied for a diploma in Social Science at the London School of Economics. In 1954 she began a theology degree at Oxford University.

After graduating from Oxford in 1956, Stanton moved to South Africa where she worked as Warden at the Tumelong Anglican Mission in Lady Selborne, a township on the edge of Pretoria, where she worked until 1960. Following the Sharpeville Massacre she found herself under surveillance, and was arrested and imprisoned without charge for two months before being deported in May 1960. From 1962 to 1970 she was employed as Warden of Mary Stuart House, Makerere University, Uganda.

After returning to England, Stanton became involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and served as Secretary and Assistant Treasurer of the United Kingdom and Ireland Group of the World Conference on Religions and Peace. She died on the 9 December 1993. Go well, stay well: South Africa, August 1956 to May 1960, is an account by Stanton of her time in South Africa (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1961).