PROVAN, Joseph. b. Stonehaven 1799; entered Aberdeen univ. 1811, M.A. 1815; had a literary engagement on the Continent; parliamentary reporter on Morning chronicle, London; edited the Macclesfield Courier 1835 to death. d. Macclesfield 11 Dec. 1867. Macclesfield Courier 21 Dec. 1867 p. 5.
PROVIS, Thomas (son of Thomas Provis, a carpenter at Warminster). Educ. Winchester school; called himself Dr. Smith and became a public lecturer; sentenced to death for stealing a gelding, but sentence commuted to 18 months’ imprisonment 1811; called himself sir Richard Hugh Smyth and said he was b. Bath 2 Sept. 1797, claimed to be the son and heir of sir Hugh Smyth, bart., who d. 28 Jany. 1824, by his first and secret marriage in 1796 with Jane, daughter of count John Samuel Vandenbergh; brought an action of ejectment to recover Ashton court, near Bristol and certain estates valued at £30,000 a year at Gloucester summer Assizes 8 to 10 Aug. 1853, his story entirely broke down on his cross examination; tried for forgery and perjury at Gloucester 6 to 7 April 1854, condemned to 20 years’ transportation; the case cost the Smyth family £6,000; confined in Millbank penitentiary 1854. d. Dartmoor prison infirmary 27 May 1855. Annual Register xcv 308–30 (1853), xcvii 94 (1855); Law magazine l 294–317 (1851), li 371; Celebrated claimants (1873) 209–19; W. O. Woodall’s celebrated trials (1873) 115–46; Impudent impostors (1876) 209–18; E. Austin’s Anecdotage (1872) 129–41; Sir B. Burke’s Vicissitudes of families ii 300–27 (1869); G.M. Feb. 1872 pp. 334–41; The victim of fatality, the life of the plaintiff in the trial Smyth versus Smyth (1854) portrait.
PROVIS, William Alexander (son of Henry Provis, engineer). b. Wimpole, Cambs. 5 May 1792; pupil of his father to 1814; assistant to T. Telford 1814–34; resident engineer of the suspension bridge over the Menai strait 1819–26, laid the first stone 10 Aug. 1819; M.I.C.E. 6 April 1819; author of An historical account of the suspension bridge over the Menai strait 1828. d. The Grange, near Ellesmere, Salop 29 Sept. 1870. bur. Kensal Green cemet. 5 Oct. Minutes of proc. of instit. of C.E. xxxi 225–30 (1871).
PROWETT, Charles Gipps (eld. son of Charles Prowett, rector of Stapleford, Herts.) b. Topcroft, Norfolk 1818; educ. Richmond and Caius coll. Camb., B.A. 1838, M.A. 1841; fellow of his college 1841 to death; barrister I.T. 5 May 1848; editor of “John Bull” newspaper to 1865; contributor to Gentleman’s and Fraser’s magazines and Quarterly review; author of Trifolium Caianum in adventum reginæ 1843; Translations and original pieces 1881. d. Northumberland st. Strand 28 June 1874. bur. Stapleford, near Hertford. Law Times lvii 237 (1874).
PROWSE, William Jeffery (son of Isaac Prowse, d. 1844). b. Torquay 6 May 1836; adopted by his uncle John Sparke Prowse, notary, Greenwich; educ. under Nicholas Wanostrocht at Greenwich; contributed to Chambers’ Journal, the Ladies’ Companion, and the National Mag. 1851 etc.; wrote in the Aylesbury News 1855; engaged on the Daily Telegraph, his first article being on the Oxford and Cambridge boat race 1861, his last on the death of Tom Lockyer, cricketer 1870; contributed to Fun the Old Man’s sporting articles, etc. under signature of Nicholas; he wrote The key of the Study pp. 199–237 in A Bunch of keys, ed. by T. Hood 1865, and Like to like, a story told by the water-rate pp. 63–94 in Rates and taxes, ed. by T. Hood 1866; he also contributed with G. L. M. Strauss to England’s Workshops 1864. d. Nice or Cimies 17 April 1870. bur. Cimies. Nicholas’ Notes and Sporting prophecies by W. J. Prowse, ed. by Tom Hood (1870) memoir pp. 3–12 portrait; Reminiscences of an old Bohemian ii 57–64 (1882); W. H. K. Wright’s West country poets (1896) 377; Newspaper Press iv 130 (1870).
PRYDE, James. b. 1802; teacher of mathematics and lecturer on mathematics in the School of arts, Edinburgh; in Chambers’s Educational Course he wrote Exercises and problems in Algebra 1855; Treatise on practical mathematics 1855; Algebra, theoretical and practical 1860; Euclid’s Elements of plane geometry 1860; Navigation 1867; and Mathematical tables, logarithms 1878, 2 ed. 1885; he was also author of Tables for calculating interest 1857; A treatise on mathematics 1868; resided 17 Newton st. Glasgow. d. of heart disease in Sauchiehall st. Glasgow 10 Feb. 1879.
PRYER, Harry. b. 1850; a merchant; fellow of Entomological soc. of London; went to Japan 1870; a recognised authority on Japanese natural history, helped to establish and maintain the museum at Tokio; made researches on the parasites of silk worms; C.M.Z.S.; author of Rhopalocera Nihonica, the butterflies of Japan, Yokohama, 1886. d. Yokohama, Japan 17 Feb. 1888.
PRYME, George (only child of Christopher Pryme of Hull, merchant 1739–84). b. Cottingham, Yorkshire 4 Aug. 1781; entered Trin. coll. Camb. Oct. 1799, scholar 25 April 1800, fellow 2 Oct. 1805 to Aug. 1813; sixth wrangler 1803; B.A. 1803, M.A. 1806; called Prize Pryme on account of the number of the prizes which he gained; barrister L.I. 15 Nov. 1806, leader of the Norfolk circuit; returned to Cambridge Oct. 1808, resided at Barnwell abbey, Cambridge from 1813; lecturer in the university on political economy March 1816, professor 27 May 1828, resigned 29 Oct. 1863; contested borough of Cambridge 1820 and 1826; M.P. Cambridge 13 Dec. 1832 to 23 June 1841, was frequently in the chair in committees of the house on bills introduced by private members; bought an estate at Wistow, Hunts. 1847; a founder of the Reform club 1836; author of Poematia numismatibus annis dignata A.D. 1801–1802, Cambridge 1802; Syllabus of a course of Lectures on political economy 1816, 4 ed. 1859; Memoir of the life of D. Sykes, Wakefield 1834; Jephthah and other poems 1838. d. Wistow 2 Dec. 1868. Autobiographic recollections of G. Pryme, edited by his daughter, Mrs. Alicia Bayne (1870); R. W. Corlass’ Sketches of Hull authors (1879) 83–90; Register and Mag. of biography Jany. 1869 pp. 48–50.
PRYOR, Alfred Reginald (eld. son of Alfred Pryor). b. Hatfield, Herts. 24 April 1839; educ. Tunbridge sch. and Univ. coll. Oxf., B.A. 1862; joined the R.C. church 1858; wrote many papers on botany in the Journal of botany 1873–81; left his herbarium, books, manuscript flora and £100 to the Hertfordshire Natural history society; author of A flora of Hertfordshire, edited by B. D. Jackson 1887. d. Baldock, Herts. 18 Feb. 1881. bur. Baldock 24 Feb. A. R. Pryor’s Flora (1887) memoir pp. v, xliv–xlvi; Journal of botany (1881) 276–8.
PRYCE, George. b. 1801; an accountant at Bristol; city librarian April 1856 to death; F.S.A. 30 April 1857; author of Notes on the ecclesiastical and monumental architecture and sculpture of the middle ages in Bristol 1850; Memorials of the Canynges family and their times 1854; Westbury college, Redcliffe church and Chatterton about 1856; Fact versus fiction, a descent among writers on Bristol history and biography 1858; A popular history of Bristol 1861. d. Bristol 15 March 1868, portrait in reference room of Bristol free library.