Sidney Hayes was the husband of Alice Hayes and father of Ada Hayes, Fred Hayes, Esther Hayes and Tom Hayes. The Hayes family moved into 5 Coronation Street in 1908. Then 32, Sidney had just married Alice, 25, and they had no children yet. Sidney was a lay preacher and held down a respectable job as a clerk at the GPO, whereas most of his neighbours were mill workers. Their eldest children were Ada, born in 1910, and Frederick, who was born in 1915 but died from diphtheria as a baby.