He was born at The Gean, a huge mansion near Alloa, the son of Alexander Forrester Paton (1881-1954) and his wife, Mary Emma Louise Shaw.
[2] Forrester-Paton was educated in Moffat, at Gresham's School, Holt, and New College, Oxford, where he gained a first class degree (BA, Honours) in 1940.
He then trained for the ministry at the United Free Church College, Edinburgh, and at the University of London, graduating with a BD degree in 1943.
In 1943, Forrester-Paton married Jean Lorimer Crichton Miller (1917–1998), who was then working for the Royal Air Force.
Forrester-Paton's grandfather was a rich mill owner, but the family was more concerned with religion than with business and his great-aunt, Catherine Forrester Paton, established a women's missionary training college in Glasgow.