"“Dop Doctor” was the name given to a Mark IV Female tank that fought, and was lost, during fighting around the village of Poelcapelle on 9 October 1917. The tank had ditched at the side of the road to St Julien, and had subsequently been hit and penetrated on the right rear, breaking the track and in all probability wrecking the secondary gears on that side. It was also hit on the left front , breaking that track too and shattering the idler’s housing, thus rendering the tank completely immoveable. Indeed, it stayed in that position until at least the 1920s." - Electric Color https://www.facebook.com/100057189920942/posts/mark-iv-female-tank-dop-doctor-ypres1918dop-doctor-was-the-name-given-to-a-mark-/1139635097952810/

"Here's another short article I wrote, again for "The Dragon", on a particularly curious name - "Dop Doctor".

"When discussing the name of a British First World War tank recently, someone said to me, “Yes, but what exactly was a Dop Doctor?” Frankly, I had no idea. Worryingly, Google seemed not to know either. “Did you mean Dog Doctor?” it asked, as if I could spell neither dog nor vet. I pressed on….

“Dop Doctor” was the name given to a Mark IV Female tank that fought, and was lost, during fighting around the village of Poelcapelle on 9 October 1917. The tank had ditched at the side of the road to St Julien, and had subsequently been hit and penetrated on the right rear horn, breaking the track and in all probability wrecking the secondary gears on that side. It was also hit on the left front horn, breaking that track too and shattering the idler’s housing, thus rendering the tank completely immoveable. Indeed, it stayed in that position until at least the 1920s.

It had been delivered from its manufacturer, almost certainly the Metropolitan Carriage Wagon and Finance Co Ltd in Birmingham, on 17 May 1917 and belonged to 7th Section of 11th Company, D Battalion. Its commander was 2nd Lieutenant G.V. Butler. The tank had the manufacturer’s number 2737 and the crew number D32. This last was painted in dark paint on a white background on the petrol tank, which on the Mark IV is between the rear horns, below the rear hatch. Its name was painted in neat white letters in an arch on the glacis plate.

Another tank, this one called “Dop Doctor II” and again commanded by 2nd Lieutenant Butler was lost to two direct hits on 20 November 1917, the first day of the Battle of Cambrai. 2nd Lieutenant Butler seems to have survived that encounter; at least I can find no entry for him on the Commonwealth War Graves website and a 2nd Lieutenant G.V. Butler is known to have fought with 5th Battalion Tank Corps in 1918.

“Yes, but what was a Dop Doctor?” Fortunately Google was only pretending not to know. “The Dop Doctor” aka “The Love Trail” aka “The Terrier and the Child” was a 1915 film directed by and starring Fred Paul, with Agnes Glynne, Bertram Burleigh, Booth Conway and Minna Grey. It was based on the 1910 bestselling book “The Dop Doctor” by Richard Dehan, the nom-de-plume of Clotilda Graves. (Never again will I think that Agatha Christie characters had ridiculous names).

So why was it considered a suitable name for a tank? The answer appears to lie in the synopsis. The story is set before and during the Boer War. Our heroine is the orphaned daughter of an English aristocrat, improbably employed as a sort of Cinderella in the home of a cruel and lustful Boer in south Africa. She runs away to escape his advances and on the outbreak of the Boer War becomes a nurse. Inevitably, for this is a romance after all, she meets and falls in love with an English doctor, though obviously not straightforwardly, who saves her from her former Boer master.

The big clue here is the setting in south Africa, for “dop” is both a Cape brandy and also a word of Dutch origin meaning a container for drink. Of course Afrikaans, the Boer language, has Dutch roots.

It is quite possible that the film would have been seen by the officer or crew of the tank and they may well have thought that the title of a decent English character that saved an innocent from the unwelcome attention of their nation’s enemy was a good name for their tank. They may even have felt the name summed up what they were fighting for, given widely circulating claims of German atrocities in British and French propaganda. Doubtless given the date of the film its makers would have laced it with such a subliminal message.

And why was the Dop Doctor so called? Well, I still don’t know, but I have a picture in my mind of a scene in a silent film with the good doctor reviving the wilting heroine with a dop from a dop."" - Sidearm https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/176337-names-of-tanks-personal/page/3/