Frederick Ashton retirement in 1963, in the company known successively as the Vic-Wells Ballet, the Sadler's Wells Ballet and the Royal Ballet. He succeeded de Valois as director of the company, serving until his own retirement in 1970. Ashton is widely credited with the creation of a specifically English genre of ballet. Among his best-known works are "Façade" (1931), "Symphonic Variations" (1946), "Cinderella" (1948), "La fille mal gardée" (1960), "Monotones" I and II (1965), "Enigma Variations" (1968) and the feature film ballet "The Tales of Beatrix Potter" (1970). Ashton was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the fourth of the five children of George
Ashton Lever the collection up for auction in 1806, when the largest purchasers were the British naturalist Edward Donovan and Leopold von Fichtel, bidding on behalf of the Natural History Museum, Vienna. Purchasers included the Earl of Derby and William Bullock, who had a large private collection. Lever's collection was catalogued by George Shaw. Ashton Lever Sir Ashton Lever FRS (5 March 1729 – 28 January 1788) was an English collector of natural objects. Lever was born in 1729 at Alkrington Hall. In 1735 Sir James Darcy Lever, his father, served as High Sheriff of Lancashire. Lever began by collecting seashells in