Notes
The Roll lists him as Percy Toynton Topham of 40 Westwood Street.
(CWGC records that Percy Topham, regimental number 24316, died on 28/4/1917 serving in the 11th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment, and is commemorated on Bay 4 of Arras Memorial in France. [The Commission currently records him as "Percy Topham Topham". A copy of his birth certificate, confirming that his true name has been sent to them, with a request to amend their records accordingly].
His birth certificate records that Percy Toynton Topham, son of Robert William King Topham and Susanna Elizabeth Topham nee Toynton, was born at Deeping St James on 2/4/1893. [Susanna was Robert Topham's 2nd wife; their marriage had been registered in the Bourne District in 1890]. Percy's mother died in 1895. On the 1901 census he was living with his widowed father at Eastgate in Deeping St James. His father's death was registered in Peterborough in 1910. On the 1911 census the orphaned Percy was lodging at 136 Victoria Street in Grantham, working as a porter for the Great Midland Railway Company.
His name was slightly misspelt as "Percy Taynton Topham" on the Medal Rolls, which stated that he served in the 2nd Battalion Suffolk Regiment before joining the 11th Battalion. The Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects likewise mistakenly recorded him as "Percy Taynton Topham", stating that his siblings and step-siblings were his legatees).