Harry Colebourne and Winnie 1914

Harry Colebourn (April 12, 1887 – September 24, 1947) was born in Birmingham, England and immigrated to Canada in 1905. He attended the Ontario Veterinary College, receiving his degree in Veterinary surgery, and moved west to Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is best known for his donation of a bear cub, known as "Winnie", to the London zoo, which was the inspiration for the character of Winnie-the-Pooh.

[edit] Winnie and the Great War

As he was heading across Canada by train to the training camp at Valcartier in Quebec where he was to embark for overseas duty in the First World War, Harry came across a hunter in White River, Ontario who had a female black bear cub for sale. The hunter had killed the cub's mother and sold the cub to Colebourn for $20. Colebourn named her "Winnie," after his adopted hometown, and took her across the Atlantic with him to Salisbury Plain, where she became an unofficial mascot of The Fort Garry Horse, a Militia cavalry regiment. Colebourn himself was a member of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, attached to the Fort Garry Horse as a veterinarian. While Colebourn served three years in France, attaining the rank of major, he kept Winnie at the London Zoo to whom he eventually donated her.^[1]

Colebourn is buried in a military cemetery in Canada underneath a regulation grave marker.

It was at the London Zoo that A.A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin Milne encountered Winnie.^[2] Christopher was so taken with her that he named his teddy bear after her, which became the inspiration for Milne's fictional character in the books Winnie-the-Pooh 1926 and The House at Pooh Corner 1928. Milne also included several poems about Winnie-the-Pooh in the children’s poetry books When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six. All four volumes were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. Winnie would stay at the zoo until she died in 1934.

[edit] After the war

After the war, Colebourn did post-graduate work at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in London, England and then, in 1920, he returned to Canada and started a private practice in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He retired in 1945 and died in September, 1947. He is buried in Brookside Cemetery in Winnipeg. There is presently a statue of Colebourn and Winnie in Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo.^[3] and the relationship between Colebourn and Winnie is recounted in the CBC Television movie A Bear Named Winnie.^[4]

[edit] Books and movies

• The Real Winnie: A One-of-a-Kind Bear Val Shushkewich.

Toronto, ON: Natural Heritage Books, 2003. ISBN 1-896219-89-6.

• A Bear Named Winnie Movie

[edit] See also

• Winnipeg bear

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Biography of Harry Colebourne at Manitoba Archives (Type Winnie in the Keystone Archive Search Engine)
• Biography of Harry Colebourne at the Canadian Encyclopedia
• James Milne's, The Page at Pooh Corner - Winnie Name Origin