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Leigh Ashton (museum director)

British curator

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 21, 2024
Entity authorityQ17421293 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sir Arthur Leigh Bolland Ashton (1897–1983) was a British art historian and director of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Early life

Ashton was the son of the Arthur Jacob Ashton, KC, Recorder of Manchester. He was educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford.

Career

In 1945, he was appointed director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, taking over from Eric Maclagan.

Ashton retired in 1955, and was succeeded by Trenchard Cox.

Personal life

In 1952, he married the fashion editor and academic Madge Garland, in a marriage of convenience. They divorced in 1962, and had no children.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Leigh Ashton (museum director)” as british curator. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Leigh, Ashton and museum.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1897, 1983, 1945, 1955—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1897-10-20. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Leigh, Ashton and museum providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Leigh Ashton (museum director)”, the useful work is to connect “british curator” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 21, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q17421293. VIAF identifies the subject as 97634094. The Library of Congress control number is n89215262. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1897, 1983, 1945 and 1955.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Leigh Ashton (museum director)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.