I've been pretty lucky in hunting down information about Forteans, including minor ones, like Norman Macbeth. But now I'm unlucky, and it is in the attempt to find information about a major Fortean, Tom Elsender, of Newcastle, England. Almost everything I have been able to find on him comes from Doubt or the correspondence of a few Forteans who knew him.
According to Ed. H. Simpson, a friend and fellow Fortean, Thomas Elsender was born in 1903. England's 1911 census has a Thomas Elsender of the correct age living in Newcastle, England, so either he was born there or moved there when he was young. I do not know what he did for work. He had at least one brother and, at least at the time of his death, was unmarried. He had a strong interest in astrology and meteorology, and spent time trying to correlate meteorological phenomena with astrological predictions. If he ever published anything, I have not found it in the usual sources. Elsender was tall, with handwriting that Tiffany Thayer sometimes had trouble deciphering.
His name first appeared in The Fortean Society Magazine's issue number 6—"Circus Day is Over"—January 1942, which may mean either that Thayer mis-remembered how early Elsender joined the Society, or that the initial material he contributed was too mystical for Thayer. In that issue, he is credited as donating "A New and Comprehensive System of Philology" (1764). His home was given as Newcastle and his name "Elsonder." Among other subjects—and what Thayer quoted in the magazine—the book considered the Earth's dimensions and the length of a degree.
Between 1942 and 1956, he was credited in thirty-three issues of the magazine, most of those more than once. His contributions ran the gamut from newspaper clippings about killer dogs to a book showing Stonehenge was a Druidical temple by an author—Reverend James Rust—whom Fort had cited on black rains in Scotland. In the 12th issue (Spring-Summer 1945), Elsender's contributions were combined with Russell's and others in the column "There Will Always Be An—," with Thayer saying, "anything hereunder which offends the Crown was written by, and is the opinion of the editor." Thayer was sometimes paranoid, and trumpeted his own bravery, but it was also true that the FBI was periodically checking in on the Fortean Society, and especially its correspondence with England. The column was a potpourri of naturalistic anomalies—comets, the changing color of Jupiter's Great Red Spot—and political criticisms about over-regulation, ignorant juries, and usurious banks.
In April 1950 (number 28), Elsender won first prize in Thayer's mock-contest for best contributions—tied with Russell and Henry Hoernlein. Elsender sent in three pieces that tickled Thayer: the sighting of a buzzard flying over Big Ben (and, Thayer hints, a moribund Winston Churchill); a terrible blizzard in Canada, that, Thayer implies, followed Russian testing of atomic weapons; and a uranium mine fire that killed either four people or 2,500.
Thayer could only slip in a small announcement of Elsender's death in issue 52 (May 1956). A full report had to wait almost a year—until February 1957, when issue 53 came out. According to Simpson, Elsender was skeptical of doctors, and, during his last illness, when he finally consulted one, he was immediately hospitalized—where he died of pneumonia. He was fifty three.
Elsender's influence continued to be felt, however: even two years after Elsender had passed, Thayer continued to publish his clippings and give him credit.