Winnie The Pooh Characters History

Winnie The Pooh Characters History

Winnie the Pooh History
By Jo Whyte

In 1920, Daphne Milne bought a large mohair teddy bear for her one year old son, Christopher, from the famous London department store, Harrods. As the English firm of JK Farnell was the exclusive supplier of teddies to Harrods, it is most likely that Farnell made Winnie-The-Pooh. There would be many other similar bears around the world! A big family of "Poohs" under different names!

Christopher first named his teddy 'Edward Bear', but renamed him "Winnie" after an American black bear he loved to visit in London Zoo. Donated by a Canadian, Lieutenant Harry Colbourn, Winnie had been bought as a cub from a Canadian hunter during WW1 and bought to England when Lt Colbourn's army unit was enroute to France. She stayed at the zoo during the war but remained there for the rest of her life, having become a favourite 'friend' to visitors.

'Pooh' was a swan that the Milnes visited in the English countryside, and of whom Christopher was very fond.

Winnie The Pooh became a character in the family's social life! Christopher personified his bear with conversations, which with other animals from his nursery, became characters in a series of little incidents that Mr and Mrs Milne, and their friends, enacted for a laugh! These other animals included a donkey (a Christmas present to Christopher, named Eeyore), and a piglet (a gift from neighbours in Chelsea). 'Tigger' the tiger, 'Kanga' and "Roo' were also added in 1925 and 1926. These incidents inspired AA Milne to bring them to literary life in his poems and stories. He set these stories in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, a mile from a country home the family bought; the 'Hundred Acre Wood' was based on the 'Five Hundred Acre Wood' within the forest.

Christopher Robin himself though, pointed out that he believed his mother provided his father with much of the material for his books, as it was she who predominately played with him, and relayed the stories of their play to his father.

Winnie The Pooh Characters History