Ivan Terence Sanderson (1911-1973) was a popular zoologist in post-World War II America. A Scot educated in zoology, geology, and botany at Cambridge University and a spy for the British forces during the war, Sanderson was best known in the U.S. for his exotic animal collections and regular appearances with his animals on radio and television in the 1950s and 1960s. Sanderson travelled extensively and was an accomplished writer and artist. He illustrated his own books and was widely published. Sanderson wrote works for a popular audience in the natural sciences, in zoology, cryptozoology, ufology, and travel.

Ivan Sanderson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on January 30, 1911. His father was Arthur Buchanan Sanderson (1880-1925), and his mother was Stella Winifred Woodthorpe Sanderson (1882-1960). An alumnus of Cambridge University and a whiskey manufacturer by trade, Arthur was a veteran of the Great War and had a fondness for travel and nature.

Ivan's mother, Stella W. W. Sanderson, was unusual for her time. She had a profession in her own right, and was an international bill broker. Stella travelled extensively, both for work and leisure. Stella's time away from Arthur led to a strain in their marriage which turned out to be irresolvable; the two divorced in 1921.

The elder Sanderson was awarded a farm in Kenya by the British government as a result of his military service. He converted it in to a game preserve. It was here that he met a tragic end; Arthur died in 1925 from wounds received from a rampaging rhinoceros.

During this time, Ivan pursued an education at the prestigious public school Eton College. While on breaks, he ventured to Europe and North Africa, collecting animals. Travel was nothing new to Ivan. By age 13, he had already experienced much of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the North Atlantic with his parents. After completing his studies at Eton at age 16, a precocious Ivan took an extended two-year trip around the world on his own, collecting animals for the British Museum. He visited Egypt, India, Ceylon, Malaya, Indonesia, New Guinea, Indochina, China, Japan, Tahiti, the South Pacific, Hawaii, and the continental United States.

Returning to England, Sanderson enrolled in Trinity College, Cambridge University. He studied zoology, botany, and geology, and read in physical anthropology and pre-history. In the summers, he continued his fieldwork with animal collecting trips to the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. He also performed winter research at marine biological laboratories and at sea out of Plymouth, England. By 1932, Sanderson graduated with masters degrees with honors in zoology, botany, and geology from Cambridge.

Upon graduation, Sanderson led a Percy Sladen Expedition to Cameroon on behalf of the Linnean Society and several other organizations. He then taught and performed postgraduate research at University College, London. Further collecting trips followed in the succeeding years to the High Atlas, Morocco; the West Indies; Trinidad; Haiti; Surinam; Jamaica; British Honduras; and, Mexico. During this period of time, in 1934, Sanderson met and married his first wife, Alma Viola Sanderson (1909-1972).

Sanderson's professional pursuits were interrupted by world events, namely the Second World War. Like his father before him, he served King and Country. In Ivan's case, he served in Naval Intelligence working in counter-espionage and anti-submarine warfare against the Germans. He refurbished a 50-foot schooner and worked out of Mexico, British Honduras, and the Western Caribbean, by the end of the war being placed in charge of counter-espionage in the latter theatre. He also spent some time in "the Orient." By the end of the war, Sanderson rose to the rank of Commander and worked in the information service as a diplomat in the United States. He continued in the employ of the British government until 1947, serving as an information and overseas press analyst in New York.

Returning to civilian life, Sanderson remained stateside and took up U.S. residence. He began a new chapter in his life, working in broadcasting, lecturing, and writing about natural science for a public audience. The broadcasting world was not entirely new to Sanderson; he made his first appearances on radio in 1930 and television in 1938, both with the BBC. Beginning in 1948, he began making regular appearances on American radio and television, stating with a weekly radio program on WNBC in New York. A regular roundtable spot on national NBC radio and two weekly television programs on WNBT soon followed. Thereafter, Sanderson had his own programs on WBAL (radio and television), WSTC (radio), and CBS (national television). His CBS program was the first commercial color television program in the history of the channel. From 1951-1958, Sanderson had a regular segment on the Garry Moore television program, where he appeared with live animals.

Starting in 1950 and throughout the decade, Sanderson imported rare wild animals from around the world to exhibit on television, to sell to zoos, and to show on exhibit. He founded a company called "Animodels," to care for and publicize his animal partners. He also established a permanent, summer roadside zoo in New Jersey, and took his animals on tours during the winter to sports shows and department stores. Calamity struck Sanderson's animals on two occasions: by fire in 1953, and by flood in 1955. He kept up the animal business until the summer of 1958.

Sanderson took some time away from broadcasting in 1959-1960, when he undertook a 60,000 mile trek around the North American continent in a station wagon. During the trip, he examined the continent's phytogeography and basic biotic ecology. A coffee table book, The Continent We Live On, resulted from the trip.

While Sanderson continued to appear on radio and television programs from the 1960s to the end of his life, during this time he relinquished a regular programming slot. Instead, he focused on writing and publishing. From 1961-1965, he worked as a senior trade editor and special science editor for Chilton Books in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There followed a stint of freelance editing, and a position as a science editor of Argosy magazine. Sanderson continued writing, editing, and reporting.

From the 1950s, Sanderson worked on the side as a freelance reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance. He covered the mid-Atlantic region, and while chasing down a story in West Virginia in 1952 was introduced to another side of science, the study of the unexplained. A group of residents of the village of Flatwoods claimed to have encountered a spaceship and a monster, and Sanderson went to rural West Virginia to investigate. He was fascinated by the event and began to become interested in studying anomalous phenomena, in crytozoology and ufology. In 1965, Sanderson established the Ivan T. Sanderson Foundation, later called Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU), to promote the study of the unknown. As part of the organization, he set up a research center at his farm in Columbia, New Jersey. Sanderson and the society examined a variety of unexplained phenomenon including UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, Sasquatch, the abominable snowman, the Bermuda Triangle, etc.

Sanderson continued studying nature in all of its forms until his death on February 20, 1973 from cancer. His wife Alma pre-deceased him in January 1972, also from cancer. Sanderson married a second time shortly before his death, marrying Sabina Bertschy Warren (1931- ), a writer for SITU, in April 1972. Prior to her work for SITU, Sabina worked for three years (1965-1968) as secretarial assistant to librarian Whitfield Bell at the American Philosophical Society.

Ivan Sanderson was an elected fellow of the Linnean Society of London, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Zoological Society of London. He published 25 books (see below for full list), and numerous articles for the Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest, American Heritage, Horizon, True, Sports Afield, Argosy, Saga, etc. He wrote for all ages, in non-fiction and fiction. Some of his fictional works were published under the name Terence Roberts.

Physical description

27 linear feet.

Provenance

Presented by Sabina Sanderson and accessioned in two parts, the first on 1 March 1977 (1977 457ms), and the second on 1 May 1977 (1977-05-01).

Processing information

Inventory processed by Michael P. Miller, April 2020.

Related material

Works by Sanderson

• Eton College.
• University of Cambridge.

• Diaries.
• Drawings.
• Notebooks.

• Africa -- Description and travel
• Asia -- Description and travel.

• Sanderson, Ivan Terence, 1911-1973
• Sanderson, Ivan Terence, 1911-1973

• Cryptozoology
• Intelligence service
• Natural history.
• Radio programs--United States
• Television programs--United States
• Unidentified flying objects.
• Zoology.