Francis Percy Toplis (August 22, 1896 – June 6, 1920) was a British criminal and imposter during World War I. He is sometimes claimed to have taken part in the Etaples Mutiny as "The Monocled Mutineer" during the war but some researchers dispute this claim.

Toplis was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. His parents were unable to support him and left him to be raised by his grandparents. In March 1908 aged 11, he was birched for acquiring two suits using false pretences.

His grandparents were no longer able to raise him and the court released him to his aunt Annie Webster, Toplis kept out of trouble until he left school in 1910 aged 13. He became a blacksmith's apprentice at the Blackwell colliery but after a poor attendance record and an argument with the pit manager he took to an itinerant life in Scotland.

In 1911 he was sentenced to ten days imprisonment in Dumfries for the non-payment of two train tickets. He returned to England, and in 1912 aged 15, he was sentenced to two years hard labour for the attempted rape of a 15 year old girl. He was released in 1914.

First World War

In 1915, the year after the outbreak of the First World War, Toplis volunteered to enlist in the Royal Army Medical Corps where he served as a stretcher bearer, his first active duty being at Loos. His unit was shipped to the landings of Gallipoli and when they returned, Toplis was hospitalized for dysentery.

Afterwards he briefly worked in a munitions factory. His unit was later posted to fronts in Salonika and Egypt but he was sent back when he contracted malaria. In September 1917 his unit was shipped to Bombay for some months and then returned to Britain.

In August 1918 Toplis's father died. Soon after he deserted from Blackpool. He was sentenced for two years in prison for fraud in Nottingham Assizes. When he was released 1920, he joined Royal Army Service Corps and was stationed in Bulford.

He was soon selling rationed fuel on the black market, forging false papers to gain access to other soldiers' salaries and wearing a colonel's uniform when he visited women in town. He often used a gold monocle as part of his disguise.

Murder and pursuit

Toplis went AWOL again on 24 April 1920. After 9.00 p.m. taxicab driver Sidney George Spicer was found dead from a gunshot wound on Thruxton Down near Andover. Toplis was seen in Bulford Camp around 11.00 p.m. but he deserted.

The inquest into George Spicer's death took place in a barn on Thruxton Down. It was at this inquest that the jury returned a verdict of 'wilful murder' by Percy Toplis and guaranteed his execution when caught. It was also the first British inquest in modern times to declare a man guilty of murder in his absence.

Toplis spent the next couple of weeks in London posing as an officer. Eventually police began to close in and he fled to Monmouth in Wales and eventually to Tomintoul, Scotland.

On June 1 a farmer near Tomintoul saw smoke in a lone gatekeeper's bothy. He alerted Police Constable George Greig and together they found Toplis sitting by a fire. Toplis fired his pistol, wounding them both, and fled on a bicycle. He cycled to Aberdeen and took a train to Carlisle where he arrived on June 5. He was seen in an Army base in Carlisle Castle.

On June 6, in Cumberland, Police Constable Alfred Fulton met and questioned a man in "partial military dress" but let him go. Back at the station, he checked police circulars and noticed that this man matched the description of a man suspected of the Andover murder. He went back to apprehend Toplis but retreated when Toplis threatened him with a gun and rode a motorcycle to Penrith police headquarters to ask for reinforcements.

Two other policemen, Inspector William Ritchie and Sergeant Robert Bertram, joined Fulton. Ritchie and Bertram were armed and for reasons still unexplained also disguised their uniforms, they set off by car to apprehend Toplis and were joined en route by the chief constable's civilian son Norman de Courcy-Parry, Jnr., on his 1,000cc motorcycle.

Parry was armed illegally with a Belgian automatic pistol which he had brought back as an 'unofficial souvenir' from the war. They saw Toplis walking towards Plumpton and tried to arrest him near Romanway. Toplis tried to run away and a gunfight ensued. During the exchange of fire one of the bullets hit Toplis' chest killing him.

On June 9 Toplis was buried in Penrith's Beacon Edge Cemetery. An inquest held on June 8 could not establish who had shot the fatal bullet, but the case was ruled justifiable homicide. Toplis's belongings, including his monocle, were handed to Penrith Museum.

Related History

There are other tales about Toplis' supposed exploits in the war.

In 1978 William Alison and John Fairley published a book The Monocled Mutineer in which they depicted Percy Toplis as an active participant of the Etaples Mutiny. The 1986 BBC series of the same name was based on this book. The latter fuelled accusations by the Conservative government of the time of left-wing bias at the BBC and launched a political crisis in Britain.

Although official records show that Toplis' regiment was en route to India during the Etaples mutiny it is in fact very difficult to prove that Toplis himself was with his regiment at the time. Toplis had made a habit of not being present with his regiment and his comings and goings cannot be accurately detailed.

This is true of thousands of soldiers throughout WWI as testament from conscripted soldiers of the time upholds. Thousands of British, French, Belgian and indeed German deserters lived in makeshift camps that were constantly on the move to avoid the patrols seeking to bring them to justice at courts martial, usually resulting in a sentence of execution by firing squad.

The political crisis that was caused by the BBC's broadcast of Alan Bleasdale's adaptation, "The Monocled Mutineer" was fuelled by the British press and its denouncement of the factuality of the series, retired staff of the British High Command sent letters to newspapers angrily refuting that there had ever been a mutiny by the British army in 1917.

The true account of Percy Toplis' involvement in the very real mutiny by the conscripted soldiers in the training camp (known as The Bull Ring) at Etaples will perhaps be made a little clearer in 2017 when the official military files concerned will be released into public domain.

Books

• Jaynie Bilton - Chasing Percy (2002)

• William Allison & John Fairley - The Monocled Mutineer (fiction, 1978)

Wikipedia.org