Henry Browne Hayes

Sir Henry Browne Hayes (1762–1832) was a landowner and Sheriff of Cork City in Ireland. 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. He was pardoned in 1812 and returned to Ireland. Surviving a shipwreck at the Falkland Islands on the return journey, he retired in Cork where he died in 1832.

Early life and family Hayes was born in Ireland, the son of Attiwell Hayes (d.1799) a wealthy brewer and miller. Henry Browne Hayes was admitted a freeman of the city of Cork in November 1782 and married Elizabeth Smyth in 1783. The couple had one son and three daughters. He was one of Cork's sheriffs in 1790 and was knighted in the same year.

Kidnapping and trial Several years after the death of his wife, in 1794, Hayes became acquainted with Miss Mary Pike, a Quaker heiress who had inherited between £20,000 and £80,000. While a form of marriage ceremony was performed against Pike's will, she was rescued from the house by a number of her relatives. The prosecution was led by John Philpot Curran. The jury found Hayes to be guilty and made a "recommendation of mercy from the required life sentence".

Vaucluse House, built by Hayes in 1803, was later acquired by William Wentworth. The vessel on which he sailed, the Isabella, also carried the United Irishman Joseph Holt and an account of their shipwreck can be found in the Memoirs of Joseph Holt.