Heritage Day 2000 Main Page

History of Winnie the Pooh

by
Angela Buoncore and Brandi Legiehn
Grade 8

During the First World War

During the First World War, troops from Winnipeg were being transported to eastern Canada, on their way to Europe, where they were to join the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade. When the train stopped at White River, Ontario, and a lieutenant called Harry Colebourn bought a small female black bear cub for $20.00 from a hunter who had killed its mother. He named her 'Winnipeg', after his hometown of Winnipeg, or 'Winnie' for short.

Winnie became the mascot of the Brigade and went to Britain with the unit. When the Brigade was posted to the battlefields of France, Colebourn, now a Captain, took Winnie to the London Zoo for a long loan. He formally presented the London Zoo with Winnie in December 1919 where he became a popular attraction Winnie lived until 1934.

The bear was very popular with Christopher Robin. It was his favorite animal at the Zoo, and he often spent time inside the cage with the bear. The bear inspired Christopher to call his bear Winnie the Pooh. The name Pooh belonged to a swan.

"Winnie The Pooh" was published by Methuen on October 14th 1926.

The 'Pooh' books had also been favorites of Walt Disney's daughters and it inspired Disney to bring Pooh onto film in 1966. In 1977, the first feature-length animated film of Pooh, "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", was released. In 1993, the Walt Disney Company acknowledged that Pooh Bear is second only to Mickey Mouse in their portfolio of the most-loves and trusted characters known to millions of people all over the world. By 1996, after the second release of "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", the bear of 'Very Little Brain' had proven to be more popular than any other Disney character. In 1997, twenty years after the release of the first feature-length animated film, Disney released "Pooh's Grand Adventure", picking up where Disney's 22nd Masterpiece left off.

A. A. Milne started to write a series of books about Winnie the Pooh, his son Christopher Robin, and their friends in the 100- Acre Wood. These other characters, such as Eeyore, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga and Roo were also based on stuffed animals belonging to Christopher Robin. The characters, Rabbit and Owl, were based on animals that lived, like the swan Pooh, in the surrounding area of Milne's country home, Cotchford Farm in Ashdown Forest, Sussex. It is this geographic area upon which the 100-Acre Wood was based.

The Real Winnie the Pooh Won

The real Winnie the Pooh won't be found on a video, in a movie, on a T-shirt or a lunchbox. Since 1987, the real pooh and four of his best friends- Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga and Tigger have been living in the central children's room at the Donnell Library Centre, part of the New York Public Library.

Long before Walt Disney turned Pooh and his pals into movie stars, Christopher Robin Milne, a very real little boy living in England, received a small stuffed bear on his first birthday. He named him Edward Bear (later renamed Winnie The Pooh.) Following Edward came the rest of the stuffed animals, which Christopher loved and played with throughout his childhood.

One day, Christopher's father, A. A. Milne, and an artist named Ernest H. Shepard, decided that these animals, and two other imaginary friends, Owl and Rabbit, would make fine characters in a bedtime story. From that day on, Pooh and his friends have had many fanciful adventures, from Piglet's encounter with a Heffalump to Eeyore's loss of his tail. These stories have been embraced by millions of children and adult readers for more than 70 years.

Anyone can visit the real Winnie-The-Pooh and his pals. Every year thousands of children and their parents come to see them at the Central Children's Room in the Donnell Library Centre. Surrounded by thousands of children's books, in dozens of different languages, Pooh and his friends are as happy as when they lived in 100 Acre Wood.

Time Line