Percy Cotterell Bytheway 1871 - 1947

Initially living Birmingham he moved to Glasgow in December 1894. He refused promotion to London and remained in Glasgow as an Electrical Engineer to manage the engine room of the General Post Office, Ingram Street. It was here that Percy had a major hand in installing the first ever conveyor belt for letters - post box to sorting room.

 

On retirement he received many tokens of affection and appreciation.

 

Easy going and unambitious he was jolly and liked by most. Fond of sport, he was an enthusiastic cricketer - emulating Grace in winning a tea-drinking contest at his club.

 

He enjoyed cycling, riding a 'penny-farthing' he fell from it saluting a lady friend.  On another occasion, whilst riding at night on Loch Lomond side he was stopped by a policeman.  He evaded being booked for having no lights when he innocently gave his name as 'P.C. Bytheway'.

 

Other interests were athletics, football, sea-fishing, band music and gardening. Artistic, he catalogued the early films - actors & actresses - for easy reference, this inspired by the establishment of a cinema near to his retirement home.

He was non-church going and having an uncertain philosophy which could have resulted from the death, in his infancy, of his mother - no mother love.

Like his father, William Henry Bytheway, he never understood illness.  He took to some serious reading latterly in the ten years he lived with his daughter after a world war II bomb dropped near his home where he had lived alone for some years after his wife's death.

 

Roy Bytheway has a copy of Percy Cotterell Bytheway's Birth Certificate, Copy dated 10 February 1899.

 

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