Hayes is a town in the London Borough of Hillingdon. It is a suburban development situated 13 miles (20.9 km) west of Charing Cross and within the historic county boundaries of Middlesex. Hayes was developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries as an industrial locality to which residential districts were later added to house factory workers. Its development is typical of the Second Industrial Revolution - the creation of new light engineering industries on the edge of existing cities. Since development, industry has been pre-eminent in Hayes, and the provision of adequate housing did not begin until after World War I with the creation of modest dwellings of the garden suburb type. George Orwell, who adopted this pseudonym while living here, worked as a schoolmaster at The Hawthorns High School for Boys, situated in Church Road. The school has since closed and is now known as The Fountain House Hotel. He hated his time in Hayes, camouflaging it lightly as West Bletchley in Coming Up for Air, as Southbridge in A Clergyman's Daughter and saying of it: "Hayes ... is one of the most godforsaken places I have ever struck. The population seems to be entirely made up of clerks who frequent tin-roofed chapels on Sundays and for the rest bolt themselves within doors." Since Orwell's time other famous names have spent time in Hayes. Former England footballer Glenn Hoddle was born here in 1957, one time England captain Ray Wilkins grew up here, as did punk band The Ruts, former BBC director-general Greg Dyke was born in Hayes and attended Hayes Grammar School, and Brian Connolly, late singer of Seventies glam rock outfit Sweet, at one time lived in Hayes. More recently the actor Anne Marie Duff grew up in Hayes. Hayes's most famous resident pre-dates them all. The man known as "the father of English music", William Byrd lived in Harlington in the 1540s and a primary school in the area bears his name. More on Hayes 

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