Robin Carfrae Alston

Robin Carfrae Alston, OBE, FSA (29 January 1933 – 29 June 2011) was a bibliographer.

Early life and education Alston was born in Trinidad. In 1936, his family (owners of a prosperous shipping business) moved to Barbados. He was subsequently sent to Rugby School, which he did not enjoy, although he did develop a lifelong enthusiasm for jazz piano playing. He went to the University of British Columbia for his BA, graduating in 1954. He then took an MA at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Following his MA, Alston taught briefly at the University of Toronto from 1956 to 1958, as well as the University of New Brunswick, before moving to King's College London for a PhD on early-modern spelling reform in English. According Stephen Green, Alston 'brought an irrepressible enthusiasm' to this work and the historical bibliography it entailed: 'restless, professionally and personally, in the early 1960s he travelled throughout Europe for months in his VW Beetle, startling the keepers of libraries great and small with his insistence on the first-hand inspection of their collections'. Alston relinquished his lectureship in 1969, but continued teaching at Leeds until 1976. The University's obituary notes that 'he was, and throughout his career remained, an outstanding teacher and lecturer, whose energy and enthusiasm lit up his talks'.

Archives Parts of Alston's archive and book collection are held by the National Library of Australia. Information on his archived webpages is here.