Born in London to a family of carpet & floor-cloth manufacturers, Hayward was one of five children. In spite of comparatively humble beginnings, Hayward was fluent in both French and Italian and became well-travelled by the standards of his time. He would go on to produce the same sorts of commercial floor cloth and canvas as his father had, also providing more sophisticated services such as house painting and interior decoration, an indication of his commercial success and rise through the ranks of the trade.

An accomplished watercolour painter in his own right, Hayward contributed various works to the Royal Academy, largely a mixture of figure and landscape subjects. He also assisted several professional artists in painting the then-popular large-scale 'panorama' pictures which were the height of fashion at the turn of the 19th century. Among his various artistic travels, Hayward accompanied Thomas Girtin and Sir George Beaumont on their sketching trip to Wales in 1800, as well as touring various provincial regions himself.

In 1802, he made his first foray into Italy, sketching and painting a number of views of Tivoli, the Roman countryside and further nearby towns. Unusually for an amateur who did not come from an affluent background and whose primary career was in 'the trades', Hayward was well-known and liked among his artistic confrères, and clearly found time to paint and exhibit regularly. He partook in both the activities of the sketching club started by Thomas Girtin (acting as its secretary for a time) and the Chalon brothers' later sketching society, and was a close friend of Girtin, Joshua Cristall and John Sell Cotman among others.