Terry Foreman on 8 Sep 2017  •  Link

Walter Hayes (scientific instrument maker; goldsmith/metalworker; English; Male; c. 1618 - before 1692)
Maker of mathematical instruments. Son of Peter Hayes, merchant of Chichester, Sussex. Apprenticed to John Allen in the Grocers’ Company in 1632, freed on 14th June 1642, remaining a member of its livery. By 1652 he had established a reputation for a high standard of work, selling a ‘full range of mathematical instruments’ in brass, silver and wood, as well as globes. Hayes had workshops first in Birchin Lane, Cornhill, and by 1653 at the latest ‘at the Cross-daggers [next door to the Pope's Head Tavern] in Moor-fields near Bethlehem-gate’, both London, and advertised his instruments in books on astronomy, mathematics, navigation and surveying. He became a free brother of the Clockmakers’ Company in 1668 and its Master in 1680-81.
Hayes was arguably the most important instrument maker of his day, respected for the quality of his work, perpetuated through the legacy of his apprentices (Hayes trained 14 apprentices between 1648 and 1684, the last of whom was Edmund Culpeper, a highly regarded telescope and instrument maker). He is thought to have died prior to 1696, when Jane Hayes, almost certainly his widow, is recorded as having sold mathematical Instruments to Christ’s Hospital. http://www.britishmuseum.org/rese…