Alfred E. Alston

Alston, Alfred Edward, son of E. G. Alston, Queen's Advocate at Sierra Leone, born in 1862, and educated at St. Paul's School and Gloucester Theo. Coll. D. 1886; P. 1887; Curate of St. Mark's, Gloucester, 1886-7; and since 1887 Rector of Framingham-Earl, with Bixley. In 1904 the following Carols by Mr. Alston, with Tunes by Robin H. Legge, were included in the Clumber Hymnal:—
1. Cometh the day when the gloom fled away. [Purification B. V. M.] Written in 1894, and published by Novello & Co. the same year in Twelve New Christmas Carols, by A. E. Alston and R. H. Legge.
2. Cometh the night when the Lord of light. [Christmas Eve.] Written in 1890, and published in Novello's Christmas Carols, No. 237.
3. Herod the king in his palace sate. [Epiphany.] Written in 1890, and published as No. 246 of Novello's Christmas Carols.
4. Praise we now the holy light. [Purification B. V. M.] Written in 1890, and published as No. 247 in Novello's Christmas Carols.
5. Sweet Mary where she lay. [Annunciation B. V. M.] lncluded in Alston and Legge’s Twelve New Christmas Carols, 1894.
See also Mr. Alston's translation of "0 Pater sancte," in the 1904 ed. of Hymns Ancient & Modern. His trs. from the Latin, Some Liturgical Hymns, &c. were published in 1903.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)