Painter and printmaker Alfred Walter Bayes was born in Todmorden, Yorkshire, England, on December 19, 1931. His early formal education was limited to elementary school; however, this was supplemented with educational magazines and correspondance learning and, in his teen years, the instruction of his parents, who opened the Todmorden school, museum, and library around 1845. The Bayes family was working-class Methodist and took teachings of self improvement and collective support to heart, and their school/museum/library project was funded by the local chapter of the "Mutual Improvement Societies" that had found foothold in England in the 1820s. The Bayes ran these small institutions for a small fee, offering basic education to the children of working class families. 

During this time, Alfred Walter Bayes' interest in and talent for drawing and painting was established. Studying the reproduced works of Old Masters in the The Penny Magazine and The Art Journal, he often copied the works on his own time and under his own instruction. Eventually he was able to travel to London to visit museums, which would have exposed him to the burgeoning Pre-Raphaelite movement. Establishing himself locally for his copies of known works, he set up a business as a reproduction painter and a portraitist around 1857. After a handful of years eking out a living as such, he realized he needed formal art training, in the early 1860s he moved to London to enroll in Heatherly's Art School. He became a part of the local Pre Raphaelite scene and began exhibiting. He supported himself as an illustrator for Dalziel's and the Christian Science Monitor, and cofounded The Studio magazine, in which he contributed art criticism and imagery. By the end of the 1860s he was a prosperous artist, and had married and started a family.

He continued to work as a professional painter and printmaker for the rest of his life. He was a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour, and the St. John's Wood Clique. He helped train his sons and daughter, John, Gilbert, and Jessie, as artists who would go on to have their own successful careers. 

Alfred Walter Baye's life was cut short, however, after a fall he took in avoiding a speeding cab in 1909. He died a few days later on June 26.