The Origins of Winnie the Pooh

As loved as Winnie the Pooh is in current Disney animation, many have not read the original Winnie the Pooh books. Even fewer still know the origins of the now, very famous children's literary and movie character, Winnie the Pooh. The origins of Winnie the Pooh are both Canadian and British.

There was, in fact, a real bear behind the creation of the story book Winnie the Pooh. A Canadian Lieutenant named Harry Colebourn, bought the bear from a hunter in Canada in 1914. He then named it "Winnipeg" after the city Harry came from in Manitoba, Canada. Colebourn was in the Fort Garry Horse Militia and was also a veterinarian. There is a bronze statue in the Zoo at Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg, commemorating the famous bear and the man.

Winnipeg or Winnie as she was often called, was the mascot for Colebourn's regiment in World War I and was donated to the London Zoo. Winnie lived there for 20 years and was a popular feature at the zoo.

Christopher Milne, the son of the author who creator of the fictionalized character Winnie the Pooh, visited the zoo and named his own stuffed bear after Winnipeg the bear. Christopher Robin. A. A. Milne's young son, was featured in a poem called "Vespers", published in Vanity Fair in 1923.

The settings for the Winnie the Pooh stories are based on the home area of Alan Alexander Milne and family. They were located in East Sussex, England in Ashdown Forest in a home called Cotchford Farm. There was actually a forest nearby, not named Hundred Acre Wood as in the stories, but Five Hundred Acre Wood.

The first book that fully featured the bear was "Winnie-the-Pooh". The first part of the story was published in The Evening News in London in 1925 for a Christmas edition. It was printed for the first time in full book form in 1926. The bear was first mentioned in a poem about a teddy bear, in the book "When We Were Very Young" by A.A. Milne in 1924.

The original black and white illustrations of Winnie the Pooh and accompanying characters and settings of both the Pooh stories and the poetry books, are lovely detailed delicate drawings, much simpler than the now well known and much loved colourful Disney versions. They were created by Ernest H. Shepard who did illustrations for Punch, a well known humour magazine. Milne had worked for Punch magazine until he quit after the first world war.

Disney did not even come into the picture, until the rights for Winnie the Pooh were purchased in 1961 from both a distributor who then owned many of the rights to Winnie the Pooh for The United States and Canada and Christopher Milne's daughter, Clare . Winnie the Pooh and the merchandising rights are a source of huge revenue for Disney , bringing in about a billion dollars a year to the company.

So the simple orphaned black bear cub, caught in the wilderness by a hunter in Ontario, Canada with humble beginnings, became an industry and beloved character know the world over. His stories have been translated into many languages worldwide. If you have never see the original illustrations, or read the A.A. Milne books, they are charming and worth a look.