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
Sir Frederick Currie, 1st Baronet Rivers Grenfell. The 1861 and 1871 British Census returns show him living at the Manor House, May Place, Crayford, Kent, England with his third wife Katharine Maria and the first six of his seven children by that marriage. He was made an honorary Doctor of Civil Law by the University of Oxford in 1866. He died at St Leonards, Sussex, England, on 11 September 1875, aged 76. Katharine Maria survived him, dying on 30 January 1909, aged 87. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Reverend Sir Frederick Larkins Currie, 2nd Bt. Sir Frederick Currie, 1st Baronet Sir Frederick Currie,