Mr Alfred John Boston was born on the 8th November 1908. At an early age he became interested in railways, he started collecting Great Northern Railway (GNR) and London North Eastern railway (LNER) locomotive numbers. Later he became more interested in signalling. He joined the Stephenson Locomotive Society in 1928. He became a member of council in 1939 and during the war he acted as librarian for the Society. After the war, in 1945, he became chairman and got more involved in the preservation of locomotives. In 1958 he was elected vice-president to become president in 1961, a position which he held until April 1991. His greatest achievement was establishing a programme for railway preservation not only for locomotives but for all rolling stock. Other committees of which Mr. Boston was a member, are the National Railway Museum Advisory Panel, The Transport Trust and Railworld and he died in August 1992.