Edward Bytheway was a business man, a mine owner and a community pioneer. He was instrumental in establishing the Nash Street School of Art building in 1905. 

Linda writes, “I feel I have come to know Edward Bytheway in a very personal way having obtained so much about the man and his achievements. I greatly admire him for his unselfish consistent dedication over thirty-eight years to make Gympie a decent town in which to live, giving it not only a good cultural base but also a fine infrastructure and good facilities for it to remain a prosperous ever improving town. He was passionate about the ongoing prosperity of industry in Gympie’s surrounding district. In 1900 he was formally acknowledged as having rendered excellent work to Gympie in connection with the municipality as he was active in numerous undertakings to improve condition of Gympie, and he was determined to assist the farming community to make the pastoral industry to make a profitable one. He was a fair, astute, wise, shrewd, smart and successful business man, who made sound well informed decisions and judgments in respect of his own personal interests and for Gympie and its surrounding districts.  He had a large fund of common sense. Gympie is extremely fortunate to have Edward Bytheway who cared so much to make it a great place to live and work.

I admire Edward Bytheway for his high level of social conscience, ethics and morals; his deep commitment to his family; his proven capability to be an industrious forward looking leader; and his insight to initiate and implement several community, civic and business projects and activities.

I have learned that Edward was a compassionate man who understood the needs of the people in the district, the industries and economic framework that would work for Gympie as its circumstances changed. He did all of this while successfully managing his own business and other considerable investments in the mining industry and land.
If he walked down Mary Street tomorrow I would be delighted and overwhelmed to meet him and feel we would have a great deal to talk about such as the incredible legacy he left Gympie and the sadness that it has all but been forgotten. Unselfish highly principled dedicated caring men like Edward Bytheway are unique and do not come along all that often.

When he died in 1905, The Gympie Times wrote ‘Edward Bytheway can be remembered as a man whose ‘business capabilities were such that he was not only able to manage an extensive business of his own, but to assist with his advice and oversight on most of the public concerns of the town.’ Edward Bytheway made a tremendous contribution in his thirty-eight years of life in this town and I want this town to be proud to know the man through this history I have written.”

Past Forward. G150 Celebrating 150 years of Gympie.
This content is a part of G150: Celebrating 150 years of Gympie.
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