Peaky Blinders is back on our screens, and you might be shocked to hear it is based on real life.
The gangland show has been a huge hit for the BBC.
But did you know some of the characters were real?
You should – it’s pretty fascinating… so read on.
Read more: Peaky Blinders season 6: Who is Uncle Jack Nelson and was he a real person?
Are the Peaky Blinders real?
Believe it or not, Peaky Blinders is based on a true story… at least the people and gang life did exist.
So, yes, Peaky Blinders is kind of real.
As fans will know by now, the series is a fictional one.
It tells the story of the 19th-century Shelby family who rise through the treacherous backstreets of Birmingham to international infamy.
But while the Shelby clan is fictional, they are based on real characters.
The Peaky Blinders gang actually existed, but earlier than in the show.
They caused havoc in the city in the 1890s, the decade before the turn of the 20th century.
They were made up of working-class young men, mostly immigrants, and waged street war for status and money.
A rival gang, The Birmingham Boys, ended the Peaky Blinders’ reign in the 1910s.
This means, while Peaky Blinders is based on real-life events, the TV series begins a few decades later, in the 1920s.
What does Peaky Blinders mean?
The meaning of Peaky Blinders goes back to the gang of the same name at the end of the 19th century.
Lore has it that gang members would stitch razor blades into their flat caps, and use their hats as weapons.
However, debate rages as to whether this actually happened or not.
Razor company Gillette didn’t start producing razor blades as we know them today until 1903 in the US, and the first manufacturing company didn’t open in the UK until 1908.
So could the fearsome reputation of the Peaky Blinder be nothing more than a myth?
We’re told the name came not from concealing razor blades in peaked caps, but from wearing bowler hats with the brim pulled down over one eye.
Birmingham historian Carl Chinn believes the “slogger gang” fought with belt buckles, fire irons, knives and stones wrapped in handkerchieves.
But it wasn’t until a London-based newspaper got wind of a vicious attack on an innocent man that the name Peaky Blinders became used.
Allegedly a letter had been sent to the Birmingham press stating that the attack had been carried out by the ‘Small Heath Peaky Blinders’.
The first time the name was used.
Carl thinks that the name Peaky Blinders refers more to the gang’s sartorial sense than anything else.
The word ‘Peaky’ described a flat cap at the time, and ‘Blinder’ is Brummie slang for someone who’s dapper.
Read more: Will there be a Peaky Blinders film? Latest release, plot and cast details
The Real Peaky Blinders on BBC Two
Historian Carl Chinn explores the real-life stories of the Birmingham gangs in a new two-part series, aiming to sort out the fact from the fiction.
Fans of the Steven Knight hit BBC drama, will know that the series is based on real events.
The programme begins by examining the origins of the phenomenon in Birmingham, from the first mention of the term Peaky Blinders in the popular press in 1890.
He also examines the street gangs that stretched back into the Victorian era as far back as the 1860s, when they were known as slogging gangs.
They were “the celebrities of their age” and “the first modern youth cult”, historians suggest here.
In part two of two, Carl Chinn explores the evolution of the gang from a mass movement interested in territory and fighting into the first organised crime group in Britain.
Carl Chinn has his own reasons for exploring the real Peaky Blinders.
His great-grandfather Edward Derrick was a “peaky blinder” and a “nasty, vile man who used to be beat up my great-grandmother”.
Who was Billy Kimber?
William ‘Billy’ Kimber was a petty thief from Birmingham.
He was a real Birmingham gangster and leader of the real Birmingham Boys.
With his gang, he rose to dominate the money-spinning illegal rackets around the growing sport of horse racing at the start of the 20th century.
The Birmingham Boys were a street gang who had significant power in the North of England and London between the 1910s and 1930.
The First World War disrupted his quest to build an empire.
But, after the war, Kimber moved south to take over the rackets in the lucrative southern racecourses.
Billy had gangs in Uttoxeter and Leeds, which allowed him to control racecourses in the Midlands and the North of England.
Extending their influence in London and the South East, Billy teamed up with London gang boss, Charles ‘Wag’ McDonald, of the Elephant and Castle Mob.
In the BBC One dramatisation, Billy was brought to life by actor Charlie Creed-Miles.
Tommy Shelby shot him in the head with a single blow from his shot gun.
In reality, however, Billy Kimber was found shot and beaten in Kings Cross, London.
He was murdered by the rival Sabini gang, it’s believed.
Head of the Sheldon gang Samuel Sheldon, who was related to author Stephen Knight (Credit: BBC Two)
Was writer Stephen Knight related to the real Peaky Blinders?
Stephen Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders, is borrowing from his own family history.
The writer was related to Samuel Sheldon, head of the Sheldon gang.
Steven’s blacksmith father, George, once took “a message to the Peaky Blinders” at the age of about eight.
Steven adds: “The men were all drinking beer and whisky out of jam jars, because they wouldn’t spend any of that money on something like a glass or a cup.
“Every penny was spent on how they looked.
“The Sheldons (the inspiration for the Shelbys) were his uncles and they were the people sitting around the table.
“It wasn’t until many years later, when I started researching this, that I started seeing the name Sam Sheldon.
“He would be like Tommy Shelby – I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, that’s for certain.”
What is the TV show about?
Although using history as a reference point, Birmingham-born creator and writer Steven Knight has constructed a world of fiction for the TV drama.
The series introduces the Shelby family – with Tommy at its head.
He and his peaky-wearing pals cause mayhem and violence throughout the city.
But as they started to get more and more powerful, Tommy wanted more.
Soon, he began to do his best to take over other territories in the UK.
He made plenty of enemies in the process, too.
Tommy also took on the US Mafia, and flirted with legitimate seats of power.
But underneath it all, Tommy Shelby (played by Cillian Murphy) is a gangster who finds it hard to sustain personal relationships.
And that’s not even mentioning the rest of his Irish-Romani family.
Tommy’s aunt, Polly, held the purse strings before her tragic death.
Meanwhile, brother Arthur has never recovered from World War I and is volatile in his interaction with others (even when he’s sober, which isn’t often).
And as the Peaky Blinders gang spread out, so the number of characters they meet increased – from anti-communist-fighting priests and Jewish gangsters to Winston Churchill himself.
Which characters are real?
As Peaky Blinders is set in the tumultuous times of the early parts of the 20th century, it deals with subjects such as war, politics, power and economics.
And because of this there are inevitable skirmishes with people who actually existed at the time.
We’ve mentioned Winston Churchill, but there are plenty more real-life historical figures in the show.
In series four and five, we said hello to Jessie Eden (a trade unionist and activist), while Arthur Bigge, the King’s secretary, also made an appearance.
Jewish gangster Alfie Solomon is based on a real Jewish gangster of the same name, and we even had an appearance from silent movie legend Charlie Chaplin.
While none of the Shelby family is real, Tommy’s Birmingham Boys rival Billy Kimber was.
After growing his own criminal empire and warring with rival gangs, Kimber died aged 63 in 1942.
Back in series one, Tommy did battle with a Northern Irish police chief by the name of Chief Inspector Chester Campbell.
Carl Chinn – in his interview with West Midlands History – says that the character is surely based on the city’s very own Northern Irish police chief, Sir Charles Horton Rafter.
Sir Charles took the credit for clamping down on gang violence in the city in the early part of the 20th century.
Of course, Sam Claflin’s character Oswald Mosley is based on real-life the anti-Jewish fascist.
Series six introduced Oswald’s girlfriend and later wife, Diana Mitford.
Diana was a friend to Adolf Hitler, and died in 1980.
She was considered the most hated woman in England and was imprisoned in Holloway in WWII as a danger to the king’s realm.
Where is Peaky Blinders filmed?
Because it’s such a huge show, filming takes place in many locations, including the Black Country Living Museum for authentic period exteriors.
And while the show is set in Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester are also used.
When it comes to the grand Shelby mansion, that’s real, too.
Arley Hall – the real home of Viscount Ashbrook – is in Cheshire.
For the current sixth series, producers have filmed at the Scottish coastal town of Portnoy.
Where is the Peaky Blinders pub The Garrison?
From series two onwards, the Shelbys had their very own pub.
The Garrison is on the corner of Witton Street and Garrison Lane in the Small Heath area.
Of course, the interiors of the pub were all constructed in a studio.
There is no concrete historical evidence to tie the real-life pub The Garrison pub to the exploits of the real gang.
However, legend does say that members did meet there.
In 2019, the Daily Mail reported that the pub had fallen into disrepair and closed.
But Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight put together a consortium to bring it back to life.
“Unfortunately the Garrison pub is currently not functioning, but I’m getting people together to open it up again,” he said.
“Those who live around there say people pull up regularly – Japanese tourists and the like – to take pictures.
“I’m hoping we can do something to it so it absolutely becomes a theme pub.”
If you want a Peaky Blinders-themed drink, there is a pub further into Birmingham’s city centre.
Its name is Peaky Blinder.
The Real Peaky Blinders starts on Monday March 07 2022 at 9pm on BBC Two.
What do you think of Peaky Blinders? Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix.