Convicted of the kidnap of a wealthy heiress in Cork, he was subject to penal transportation to New South Wales in 1802 where he built Vaucluse House near Sydney.

Henry Browne Hayes was admitted a freeman of the city of Cork in November 1782 and married Elizabeth Smyth in 1783.

[2][3] In spite of Miss Pike's protestations, a man dressed as a priest was brought in who went through a form of a marriage ceremony.

[4][5] Hayes was not found until two years later, when he walked into the shop of an old friend of the family who lived on Cork's Grand Parade.

[5] Hayes was not short of money and had lightened the privations of the voyage by paying the captain a considerable sum so that he might mess with him.

[2] Once in Sydney, Hayes made himself a nuisance to Governor Philip Gidley King by consorting with the "wilder spirits" among the Irish convicts,[citation needed] and by trying to form a freemason's lodge after permission to hold a meeting for this purpose had been refused.

[8] According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, a meeting held by Hayes on 14 May 1803 is "regarded as the foundation day of Freemasonry in Australia".