Francis Percy Toplis was a British criminal and imposter active during and after the First World War. Before the war he was imprisoned for attempted rape. During the war he served as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps, but regularly posed as an officer while on leave, wearing a monocle. After the war he became notorious following the murder of a taxi driver and the wounding of a police officer who attempted to apprehend him. The manhunt was major news at the time. He was tracked down and killed in a gunfight with police.
Percy Toplis in military uniform, as printed in the Nottingham Evening Post
Lincoln Prison where Toplis served his sentence 1912–1914
The Tomintoul bothy in which Toplis spent some of his last weeks alive
The Étaples mutiny was a series of mutinies in September 1917 by British Army and British Imperial soldiers at a training camp in the coastal port of Étaples in Northern France during World War I.
Allied troops conducting bayonet practice in the infamous "Bull Ring" training camp on the dunes between Étaples and Camiers.
Tents of the New Zealand reinforcement camp at Étaples
Soldiers practise bayonet charges in the "Bull Ring" on the dunes near Etaples
