He inherited literary skills from his mother Marianne Jeffrey – who "contributed to the annuals, and published a volume of poems".
[4] Prowse, a "journalist of great brilliancy and power",[5] contributed to Chambers' Journal, Ladies' Companion, National Magazine and the Aylesbury News, before writing for the Daily Telegraph when covering the Oxford Cambridge boat races.
Prowse was also noted for his affection for polar expeditions and cricket – and is known for a seven-verse eulogy for Alfred Mynn.
[7] Thomas Hay Sweet Escott called him "the last of the highly-gifted Bohemians of London.
"[3] The majority of his poems were published after his death in a volume entitled Nicholas Notes edited by Tom Hood,[5] and in 1890 the Nation remembered the work as "yet a delight to the few who recall its pleasant humour.