[2] Born at Sandgate, Kent, the third son of William Evelyn Alston, an army medic[3] and Elizabeth Rouse Alston (nee Fitzgerald),[4] from Sydney,[1] Alston was educated at Clare College, Cambridge (admitted 7 July 1891, matriculated that Michaelmas, graduated Bachelor of Arts {BA} 1894 and proceeded Cambridge Master of Arts {MA Cantab} 1898).

He trained for the ministry at Ridley Hall, was ordained a deacon in 1896 and a priest in Peterborough in 1897.

He then held three Yorkshire incumbencies for thirteen years in succession: Vicar of St Matthew's, Hull (1907–1915); of St George's, Leeds (1915–1917[3]/18);[1] and of All Saints', Bradford (1918–1920).

[3] Moving to Sussex in 1920, Alston became Rector of St Leonards-on-Sea, becoming additionally Rural Dean of Hastings in 1926 and Archdeacon of Hastings in 1928; he resigned the rectory and rural-deanery in 1929, remaining archdeacon.

[1] He was elected a Proctor in Convocation that year, serving until 1934;[3] he ceased to be Archdeacon of Hastings when in 1938 he moved to Lancashire to become Bishop of Middleton and a Canon Residentiary of Manchester Cathedral, in which posts he remained until his retirement in 1943.