PROVIS

Thomas (son of Thomas Provis, a carpenter at War minster). 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 A izes 8 to 10 Aug. 1853, his story entirely broke down on his cro 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 Mill bank 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. Wood all’s celebrated trials (1873) 115–46; Impudent impostors (1876) 209–18; E. Austin’s Anecdotage (1872) 129–41; Sir B. Burke’s Vici itudes 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 .