Background
He was born in 1909 in Brentwood, Essex and attended Brentwood School before studying for a degree in forestry at Street Edmund Hall, Oxford.
He was born in 1909 in Brentwood, Essex and attended Brentwood School before studying for a degree in forestry at Street Edmund Hall, Oxford.
Street Edmund Hall.
He was Superintendent of the Zoological Society of London, and one of the best-known presenters of wildlife programmes and items on British television between the 1950s and 1980s. He used local children to help him collect specimens, and as a result discovered several new species. He began supplying animals for several zoos, including London Zoo.
In 1947 he was recruited by the Zoological Society of London as their Superintendent, a post which he held until 1953.
He also made regular appearances on Children"s Hour on British Broadcasting Corporation radio. From the 1960s onwards, he was a regular guest on Blue Peter, described by the programme"s producer Biddy Baxter as "..television"s zoo man - the large, avuncular studio guest who would show the presenters how to bath six-foot pythons, produce bush-babies from his trouser pockets and tarantulas out of his turn-ups..Children loved him because he was quirky, authoritative and uncondescending." The Blue Peter tortoise, George, was affectionately named after him in 1982.
David Attenborough paid tribute to Cansdale in 1992, saying that, thanks to Cansdale"s bringing animals to the television studios, "a great many people, young and old, acquired their first insights into taxonomy and comparative anatomy from what he said. He spoke good natural science."
In the 1960s Cansdale became Director of Marine Land in Morecambe, Chessington Zoo and Natureland in Skegness.
Cansdale wrote many books for the Ladybird Company.