Frederick Ashton

Lore & Background

Ashton was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the fourth of five children of George Ashton and his second wife, Georgiana. George Ashton was manager of the Central and South American Cable Company and vice-consul at the British consulate in Guayaquil. In 1907 the family moved to Lima, Peru, where Ashton attended a Dominican school. When they returned to Guayaquil in 1914, he attended a school for children of the English colony. One of his formative influences was serving as an altar boy, which inspired in him a love of ritual, as demonstrated in The Wise Virgins. Another, still more potent, influence was being taken to see Anna Pavlova dance in 1917. He was immediately determined that he would become a dancer. Dancing was not a career acceptable to a conventional English family at that time. Ashton later recalled, 'My father was horrified. You can imagine the middle-class attitude. My mother would say, "He wants to go on the stage." She could not bring herself to say "into the ballet."' Ashton's father sent him to England in 1919 to Dover College, where he was miserable. Homosexual, and with an accent that his classmates laughed at, he did not fit in at a minor public school of the early 1920s. He was not academically inclined, and his father decided that, upon leaving the school in 1921, Ashton should join a commercial company. He worked for an import–export firm in the City of London, where his ability to speak Spanish and French as well as English was an advantage. In January 1924, George Ashton committed suicide. His widow was left financially dependent on her elder sons, who ran a successful business in Guayaquil. She moved to London to be with Ashton and his younger sister, Edith. Despite family disapproval (and at first in secret) Ashton pursued his ambition to dance professionally. He auditioned for Léonide Massine; at the unusually late age of twenty he was accepted as a pupil. After Massine left London, Ashton was taken on as a student by Marie Rambert along with William Chappell who was to become a life-long friend and important influence. She encouraged him to try choreographing. His first attempt was in 1926 for a revue staged by Nigel Playfair and Rambert's husband Ashley Dukes. The Observer commented on 'an engaging little ballet called A Tragedy of Fashion: or The Scarlet Scissors, which Mr. Eugene Goossens has set most suitably to music. Miss Marie

Reader's Guide

Ashton was chief choreographer to Ninette de Valois, from 1935 until his 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 ballet film The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971).

Did You Know?

• Ashton was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the fourth of five children.
• His father was manager of the Central and South American Cable Company and vice-consul at the British consulate in Guayaquil.
• Ashton was taken to see Anna Pavlova dance in 1917, which inspired him to become a dancer.
• His first choreographic attempt was in 1926 for a revue staged by Nigel Playfair and Ashley Dukes.
• In 1941 Ashton was called up for war service and commissioned as an officer in the Royal Air Force, at first analysing aerial photographs and later as an intelligence officer.