Sir Ashton Lever FRS (5 March 1729 – 28 January 1788) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

collector of natural objects, in particular the

Leverian collection The Leverian collection was a natural history and ethnographic collection assembled by Ashton Lever. It was noted for the content it acquired from the voyages of Captain James Cook. For three decades it was displayed in London, being broken up ...

.Ashton Lever
Manchester celebrities], retrieved 31 August 2010

Biography

Lever was born in 1729 at Alkrington, Alkrington Hall. In 1735 Sir James Darcy Lever, his father, served as

High Sheriff of Lancashire The High Sheriff of Lancashire is an ancient officer, now largely ceremonial, granted to Lancashire, a county in North West England. High Shrievalties are the oldest secular titles under the Crown, in England and Wales. The High Sheriff of Lanca ...

. Lever began by collecting

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s in about 1760, and gradually accumulated one of the richest private collections of natural objects, including live animals. He opened it to the public in April 1766, in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

, moving the museum to his family home at Alkrington Hall, near

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Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancas ...

, in 1771. In the same year he founded Archers' Hall, Inner Circle, Regent's Park, London for the Archers' Company of the Honourable Artillery Company. In 1774, Lever moved to London, and next year his

Holophusicon The Leverian collection was a natural history and ethnographic collection assembled by Ashton Lever. It was noted for the content it acquired from the voyages of Captain James Cook. For three decades it was displayed in London, being broken up ...

opened to the public in

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicest ...

. Captain

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...

was impressed by Lever's collection, and donated objects from his own voyages to the museum. Lever continued to buy items until he became

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, at which point the collection contained 28,000 specimens. Both the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and the

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declined to buy it, so it was disposed of by lottery: 8,000 tickets were sold at a

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each. The winner, James Parkinson, later put the collection up for auction in 1806, when the largest purchasers were the British naturalist

Edward Donovan Edward Donovan (1768 – 1 February 1837) was an Anglo-Irish writer, natural history illustrator, and amateur zoologist. He did not travel, but collected, described and illustrated many species based on the collections of other naturalists. Hi ...

and

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, bidding on behalf of the

Natural History Museum, Vienna The Natural History Museum Vienna (german: Naturhistorisches Museum Wien) is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the most important natural history museums worldwide. The NHM Vienna is one of the largest museum ...

. Purchasers included the

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and William Bullock, who had a large private collection. Lever's collection was catalogued by George Shaw.

Biography

References

Further reading