Hailes was born in London, and moved in influential literary and artistic circles: he was a sufficiently close friend of Lady Byron to dissuade her from publishing a paper on female education; he knew Hazlitt, Rev.
Rowland Hill, Allan Cunningham, De Quincey, Edward Irving, Dr Chalmers, and Sir Walter Scott.
[5] He started a newspaper, Adelaide Free Press, which ceased publication after barely a month (October – November 1841) due, no doubt, to an overcrowded market rather than any lack of quality.
Brown, C. Mann, J. Hallett, W. Blyth, W. G. Lambert, H. Watson, T. Wilson, E. Rowlands, E. W. Andrews, J. Frew, W. H. Neale, S. East, W. Sanders and J. V. Wakeham.
[10] He is reported as having brief stint in Mount Gambier, and contributing a lively column "Random Shots at Flying Game" to the Border Watch newspaper under the byline "Rifleman"[11] but corroboration is difficult to find.