ALSTON, Sir EDWARD (1595–1669), president of the College of Physicians, was born in Suffolk, and was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. 1615, M.D. 1626. In 1631 he was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians, and was president from 1655 until 1666. At the Restoration he was knighted (3 Sept. 1660). He increased the power of the college by a judicious inclusion of physicians who during the rebellion had practised without the college license. Thus seventy honorary fellows were created at once. Their diploma fees filled the almost empty college chest, but while the college was unguarded during the plague, thieves carried off the money. When in the following year the fire inflicted a still more serious loss on the society, Sir E. Alston promised money to rebuild the college, but a quarrel arose as to the site, and at the annual election he was not again chosen president. He withdrew his promise of money and never renewed it. He published in quarto ‘A Collection of Grants to the College of Physicians,’ London, 1660. He lived in Great St. Helens, Bishopsgate, and died very rich 24 Dec. 1669.
[Munk's College of Physicians (1878), i. 202.]
ALSTON, EDWARD RICHARD (1845–1881), zoologist, was born at Stockbriggs, near Lesmahagow, 1 Dec. 1845, and, being delicate in youth, was chiefly self-educated at home. He very early contributed to the ‘Zoologist’ and various Scottish magazines, and ultimately became an acknowledged authority on mammalia and birds. His principal papers in the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society’ (1874–80) are upon rodents, especially American squirrels (1878 and 1879). The division Mammalia in Salvin and Godman's ‘Biologia Centrali-Americana’ was written by him, though its publication was incomplete at his death. In 1880 he was elected zoological secretary of the Linnean Society, which office he held till his death from acute phthisis on 7 March 1881. In 1874 he largely assisted Prof. T. Bell in the second edition of ‘British Quadrupeds.’ All his papers are valuable, and remarkable for conciseness and lucidity.
[Obituary Notice, Proc. Linn. Soc. 1880–81, p. 16.]
ALTEN, Sir CHARLES von, Count, G.C.B. (1764–1840), major-general in the British army, and lieutenant-general in the Hanoverian army, performed eminent services at the head of the famous light division of the British army in the Peninsular campaigns. He was youngest son of Aug. Eberhardt, Baron Alten, of an ancient protestant family in Hanover, and was born on 12 Oct. 1764. At the age of twelve he became a page of honour in the electoral household, and in 1781 received a commission in the Hanoverian foot guards. As a captain in the Hanoverian service he made the campaigns of 1793–4–5, in Flanders and Holland, under the Duke of York; and it was while detached in charge of an important line of posts on the Lys, betwixt Poperinghe and Wervicq, in 1794, that he first displayed those abilities as a light-infantry officer for which he was afterwards so celebrated. In 1803, when the Hanoverian army was wholly disbanded in accordance with the convention of Lauenburg, Alten was one of the first to quit his country and enrol himself in the force then collecting at Lymington, Hants, which some months later was embodied in the British army under the style of the King's German Legion. In command of the light battalions of the legion, Alten served in the expedition to Hanover under Lord Cathcart, in 1805; at Copenhagen in 1807; with Sir John Moore, in Sweden and Spain, in 1808; and in the Walcheren expedition of 1809. Subsequently he joined the army in the Peninsula, and commanded a British brigade at the battle of Albuera. In April, 1812, Lord Wellington, then preparing his final stroke, placed Alten at the head of the light division, composed of the British 43rd, 52nd, and 95th Rifles, with some Portuguese troops, and light cavalry and artillery attached, in command of which he fought at Vittoria, the battles on the Nivelle and Nive, Orthez and Toulouse. When the peninsular army was broken up, Alten was presented with a sword of honour by the British officers under his command, in token of the respect and esteem in which he was held. In 1815, he commanded the third division of the British army at Quatre-Bras and Waterloo, and was very severely wounded on the latter occasion. In acknowledgment of his services at Waterloo he was honoured with the title of count. The King's German Legion was disbanded in 1816, and Count Alten, who was then placed on half-pay, was appointed to command the contingent of the reorganised Hanoverian army, serving with the allied army of occupation in France. After his return to Hanover in 1818, he became minister of war and of foreign affairs and inspector-general of the Hanoverian army, posts which he held up to his decease. He rose to the rank of field-marshal in the Hanoverian service, retaining his major-general's rank on the British half-pay list. He died at
