Edward Hayes and his younger brother, Graham, arrived in Perth from England in 1897 as young children. They both went on to become association footballers with the Claremont club. They both went on to enlist, and tragically neither returned home.
Edward Hayes joined the 16th Battalion on 28 December 1915 as a Private. He served in France when he took ill in August and was sent to hospital at Etaples and then transferred to England. On 5 November 1916 Sergeant Hayes died of cerebral haemorrhage caused by spinal meningitis in military hospital in England. He was 24 years of age.
His younger brother was killed in action three months earlier in France just shy of his 20th birthday.