Many generations have come to know and love the self-confessed ‘bear of little brain’ – Winnie-The-Pooh. What though, do we know of his history?

Winnie-The-Pooh’s history starts way back during the first world war, when during a stop-off in Canada, on his way to Europe, a lieutenant called Harry Colebourn bought a small black female bear cub for 20 dollars from a hunter. He named her ‘Winnipeg’ after his home town of Winnipeg and she was called ‘Winnie’ for short. Winnie became the mascot for the brigade. When posted to France, Lt. Colebourn took Winnie to London Zoo, where she stayed on a long loan, until she was formally presented to the zoo in the December of 1919.

The bear became a popular zoo attraction, especially to one young boy, Christopher Robin Milne, son of author A.A. Milne. He used to visit Winnie and was even allowed to spend some time inside the cage with her. After these encounters, Christopher’s own teddy bear (originally called Edward the Bear), became ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’.

<Edward the Bear

Why ‘Pooh’ you ask?

The name of ‘Pooh’ was originally given to a swan in a poem from Milne’s book of verse for children ‘When We Were Very Young’, but was adopted to go with Winnie – making the famous bear’s name complete!

A.A. Milne then started writing a series of books about Pooh, Christopher Robin and their other friends at the 100 Acre Wood. All the characters, including Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Kanga and Roo were, like Pooh, based on stuffed animals that belonged to Christopher Robin. Other famous Pooh characters, such as Owl and Rabbit, were based on animals which lived in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, near Milne’s country home of Cotchford Farm. The 100 Acre wood was based on Ashdown forest and all the places where Winnie-The-Pooh and his friends enjoyed their adventures can still be found there.