Born in Warsaw as Abraham Anthony Hershman, Hayden was the son of a cantor who had taken his family to Britain in 1930.  They settled in Manchester, where, in 1937, the teenage Abraham Hershman commended the five-year architecture course at the Manchester Municipal School of Art, receiving scholarships and prizes each year.  Completing his course in 1942, he was admitted as an associate of the RIBA the following year.  His professional development was interrupted by the Second World War, and he served for five years with the Royal Engineers, in England and the Middle East.  After his demobilisation, he changed his name and then worked for two years in the office of 'a leading firm of architects' in Manchester.  It also appears that he commenced his own practice, as a surviving letter from 1949 bears the letterhead of 'Anthony A Hayden, ARIBA, chartered architect' with offices at 39 Bishops Road, Prestwich, Lancashire.  

That same year, Hershman and his brother both migrated to Australia, where the former found employ in the Collins Street office of Arnold Bridge & Associates.  Hayden became registered with the Architects' Board of Victoria in 1950, with Bridge himself signing as his referee.  In 1956, after several years with the office, Hayden was elevated to partnership; the firm's name was changed to Bridge, Hayden & Associates, and it relocated to larger offices at 409 St Kilda Road.

During the firm's heyday of the 1950s and '60s, the office of Bridge, Hayden & Associates appears to have been mostly involved in medium-scaled retail, commercial and industrial projects in the metropolitan area. One regular client was the Dickin's New World grocery chain (later taken over by G J Coles), for whom the architects carried out several projects.  An interesting aspect of Hayden's role within the practice was his ability to obtain clients through Melbourne's thriving post-war Jewish community.  Consequently, his work is well represented in suburbs such as Kew, Caulfield and East St Kilda.  This ongoing association culminated in Hayden's designs for two new synagogues and one of his most unusual and eye-catching designs - a large monument in the Melbourne General Cemetery to commemorate Jewish victims of the Second World War.

Following Arnold Bridge's retirement in 1973, the firm continued under the name of Anthony A Hayden & Associates.  By the early 1980s, Hayden was living in semi-retirement on a cattle property in Wollert, near Whittlesea.  He died tragically, following a horse riding accident, on 25 March 1984.