Stylish and dark, the international phenomenon that’s the ‘Peaky Blinders’ TV series highlights the exploits of the charismatic Thomas Shelby and his violent Birmingham organised crime gang in the aftermath of the First World War. Well-dressed, captivating, and powerful, these dramatised gangsters are nothing like the real peaky blinder gangs of late Victorian and Edwardian Birmingham. |

 

Overwhelmingly poor, unskilled men and teenagers, they revelled in violence. Battling each other, baiting the police, and bullying the hardworking decent poor of the back streets, they abused women and, infected with racism, attacked Italians and Jews. Thugs and often petty criminals, the peaky blinders inflicted a reign of ruffianism that was ended by 1910 thanks to the provision of sporting clubs, more severe prison sentences, and vigorous policing. Under Chief Constable Charles Haughton Rafter, a Protestant Irishman, and his deputy, Michael McManus, a Catholic Irishman, the Birmingham force recruited tall, fit, and strong young men who took on the peaky blinders, having fulfilled three criteria: “Can they read, Can they write, Can they fight”. 

 

 

In his illustrated talk, Peaky Blinders. The Real Gangs and Gangsters Carl Chinn delves deeply into the reality of Birmingham’s street gangs and peaky blinders. The author of the Sunday Times number one bestseller, Peaky Blinders. The Real Story (2019), he was the historical consultant for the BBC documentaries, ‘The Real Peaky Blinders’ (2022). His latest book is Peaky Blinders. The Real Gangs and Gangsters. The true story of Britain’s most notorious street gangs (Blink Publishing, 2025).