Blogathon Vancouver 2008: "P" is for Pender

Comments 3 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Getting to the bottom of some historical names in the area, it’s time to explore “P” for Pender. From what I can find, Pender Street in Vancouver is named after the same Pender as Pender Harbour and Pender Island, BC.

Pender Harbour was named by Captain Henry Richard in honour of his Staff Commander (later Captain) Daniel Pender. From 1857 to 1870, Pender surveyed the BC Coast with remarkable zeal and thoroughness on the famous ships Plumper, Hecate, and Beaver. The British Navy and BC Governor James Douglas jointly funded Daniel Pender’s invaluable survey on the ‘HMS Beaver’. Captain Richard and Pender’s mandate was to resolve the unsafe discrepancies in longitude between the survey maps of Captain Cook and Captain Vancouver. [Source]

I admit when I first read somewhere else that “Pender was the Master of the Plumper” I was somewhat confused, although with this nautical explanation everything now makes sense.


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3 Comments  —  Comments Are Closed

  1. Tanya (aka NetChick)Sunday, July 27th, 2008 — 1:33am PDT

    Giggling… “Master of the Plumper” too funny!!!

    ps: your sponsered link for your last post was “Desire”? Wow. I thought I was the only one that had that kind of um “client”. 😉

  2. fotoeinsSunday, July 27th, 2008 — 9:00am PDT

    P.

    As a wae lad at the Chinatown/East Vancouver periphery, my “world” at the time was focused on the east-west triumvirate of East Georgia, Keefer, and East Pender. The conscious expansion of this “world” where Georgia and Pender extended westwards into downtown was a magnificent find as a five-year old.

    As always, I enjoy reading about the historical significance to place names.

  3. Vancouver History: Lord Roberts School » Vancouver Blog Miss 604Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 — 7:38am PDT

    […] During Blogathon I took on the “A-Z” of Metro Vancouver and for some of my entries I shared random history tidbits ie. “Y” for Yasutaro Yamaga and “P” is for Pender. […]

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