A.A. Milne published Winnie-the-Pooh on October 14, 1926, one hundred years ago this month. The bear in the book was invented. The name was not.
On August 24, 1914, a troop train carrying Canadian soldiers east toward the war stopped at White River, Ontario. A young army veterinarian named Harry Colebourn saw a trapper on the platform with an orphaned black bear cub on a leash and bought her for $20. He recorded the purchase in his diary that day. He named her Winnipeg, after the city where he lived, and it shortened almost immediately to Winnie.
She went to war with him. The cub became the unit mascot, crossed the Atlantic, and spent the training weeks in England sleeping under his cot and eating condensed milk and apples. When his orders came for France in December 1914, Colebourn left her at the London Zoo, expecting to collect her when it was over.
He survived and came back for her. By then she had become one of the most popular animals in the zoo, gentle enough that children fed her by hand and were allowed to ride on her back. Colebourn decided she was better off where she was and donated her permanently in 1919. She lived there until 1934.
Among the children who came to see her, starting in 1924, was a boy named Christopher Robin Milne. He already owned a teddy bear. Its name was Edward. After meeting the bear at the zoo he renamed it, borrowing the second half from a swan he had known.
So the most famous bear in English children's books carries the name of a female black bear from northern Ontario who went overseas as a soldier's pet, and half the name of a swan.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.
