Enderby
Feature Type:City - A populated place with legally defined boundaries, incorporated as a city municipality under the provincial Municipal Act.
Status: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: Between Armstrong and Salmon Arm, Kamloops Division Yale Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 50°33'01"N, 119°08'22"W at the approximate location of the Municipal Hall.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 82L/11
Origin Notes and History:

Enderby (City) confirmed 3 November 1932 on 82L/NW, as labelled on BC map 1EM, 1915, and incorporated under the Municipal Act.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Enderby Post Office opened 1 November 1887, Oliver Harvey postmaster. First school opened 1889, John Bannerman teacher. City of Enderby incorporated 1 March 1905, George Bell mayor. See also the municipality's own website.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

First called Lambly's Landing after brothers Thomas McKie Lambly and Robert Lambly, who built a freight warehouse in 1878. The actual townsite, surveyed 1885, was originally called Belvidere. (12th Report, Okanagan Historical Society, 1948.)

Source: included with note

First settler Alexander Leslie Fortune, a member of the Overlanders of 1862, who travelled from eastern Canada to the Cariboo then on to the Spallumcheen district. He decided to become a farmer and pitched his tent near [the present townsite] in 1866. Mr. Fortune was the first exporter of North Okanagan produce, sending it by canoe and row boat to Sicamous and Kamloops. The present townsite was originally a cattle ranch owned by the Lambly brothers, Thomas, Richard and Robert. They lived in a log house where the Dew Drop Cafe is now situated, and a barn in the location of the present Bank of Montreal was the only other building. The brothers had part of the ranch surveyed into blocks and streets and put on the market. The only name for the district at that time was Lambly's Landing. About 1885 there was considerable discussion about a suitable name for the townsite. A gathering at the Lawes' home one late afternoon were admiring the view as they looked eastward over the green [partly flooded] meadows that now make up the present business section of the city. One of the party recalled the poem by Jean Ingelows, "The High-tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire" which was very popular at that time. [The poem] told the story of the crumbling of the old seawall and the rush of water up the Landis River which flooded the meadows of Enderby. Why not name [this place] Enderby ? suggested the hostess, Mrs. Lawes. The name met with instant approval. Mr. Henry Harvey had the first general store and post office.... (History of Enderby, published in The Armstrong Advertiser, 23 June 1955. p 3.)

Source: included with note

"At an afternoon tea at the home of Mrs. George R. Lawes one day in 1887, when the Spallumcheen (now Shuswap) River was overflowing its banks, Mrs. Henry Oliver recited Jean Ingelow's poem, "The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire," beginning: The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers ran by two, by three;
"Pull, if ye never pulled before;
Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.
"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!
Ply all your changes, all your swells,
Play uppe 'The Brides of Enderby".
The lilt of the poem and the name Enderby pleased the ladies, and at the suggestion of Mrs. Lawes they proposed to call the town Enderby. The name was submitted to the Post Office authorities at Ottawa, who approved it. The poem refers to a high tide which engulfed Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1571, and to the warning given the people by the church bells; but the tune, the Brides of Enderby, was an invention of the author's, although one to fit the words was composed afterwards. Lincolnshire has three villages named Enderby; Bag Enderby, Mavis Enderby and Wood Enderby, between Spilsby and Horncastle, all small and all quite old. The church at Bag Enderby has a sepulchral slab which states in Latin that Albinus de Enderby, who had the church built, died in 1407. (12th Report of the Okanagan Historical Society, 1948, citing Ok, 2:33-34; 4:27-28; 5:21-22; 6:81).

Source: included with note