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Harry Colbourn
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Veterinarian.
Born at Birmingham, England on 12 April 1887, he emigrated to Canada in 1905, where he attended the Ontario Veterinary College. After graduation, he accepted a position with the federal government’s veterinary service in Winnipeg.
In 1914, while travelling by train across Canada as a member of the Canadian forces heading to France, he bought a small female bear cub which he named Winnie after his adoptive home town. He left the bear at the London Zoo when his brigade was mobilized to the French battlefields, where it was seen by A. A. Milne, the British writer who subsequently used it as the basis for the character Winnie The Pooh in a book. Colebourn returned to Winnipeg after the First World War, where he worked as a veterinarian, retiring in May 1945.
On 8 September 1924, he married Christina McKenzie (1893-1985) at Winnipeg and they had a son, Fred Colebourn (1925-1998).
He died at his Winnipeg home, 600 Corydon Avenue, on 24 September 1947 and was buried in the Brookside Cemetery.
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Winnie-the-Bear Statue (Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg)
Marriage registration [Harry Colebourn, Christine McKenzie], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Death registration [Harry Colebourn], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Veterinarian dies, aged 62,” Winnipeg Free Press, 26 September 1947, page 4.
Obituary [Christina Colebourn], Winnipeg Free Press, 9 December 1985, page 34.
Obituary [Fred Colebourn], Winnipeg Free Press, 3 June 1998, page 31.
Brookside Cemetery: A Celebration of Life, Volume 1, published by E. R. Publishing & Communications Ltd., Winnipeg, 2003, ISBN 0-973346-0-5 (paper).
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 29 November 2013
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