Finally Peaky Blinders is back on our screens, a show that’s given the West Midlands international recognition. Birmingham’s industrial 1900s appear as a trendy ‘wild west’ backdrop to the Shelby gang’s exploits.
The peaky blinders were a real Birmingham gang, and local historian Carl Chinn has done a great job separating the fact from the creative fiction. His book ‘Peaky Blinders - The Real Story of Birmingham's most notorious gangs’ is worth a read for any fan of the show.
The first official mention of the gang was in 1890, when a man was attacked in a Birmingham pub (The Rainbow in Digbeth). However, the TV show sets the Peaky Blinders in the 1920s, as a group of heroes coming to terms with life post the Great War. It’s not clear why the creators did this, possibly because this period would give the show a better chance on prime time TV?
Its not clear where the name derives, maybe from local slang or from the peaked flat caps the group wore, notably different to the style of the day - closer to bowler hats. It’s unlikely the gang had razors in their caps however, these would have been expensive for young men living on the breadline in 19th century Birmingham, and weapons such as belt buckles, stones and fists & elbows were the more economical tools available.
Pre-WW1 industrial Birmingham would have been a tough place to grow up. Rivalry for space in a crowded city was rife. The gangs were called ‘sloggers’ named because of the way they pelted each other with rocks across the cobbled streets of the inner city. Along with fighting, pickpocketing and bookmaking (that was outlawed at the time) were also past time for the gangs. However, unlike the show, they wouldn’t have got mixed up in mass police corruption or politics.
The fashion synonymous with the Shelbys is accurate of the time. Chinn mentions how the gang wore flat peaked caps, in contrast to fashions of the day. They also had cropped hair that they pulled out from their caps and swept across - possibly to show of scars on their faces from fighting.
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