Dan Snow's History Hit - The Real Peaky Blinders

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

Who were the real Peaky Blinders? Did they really exist? Carl Chinn reveals the true story of the notorious gangs that roamed Birmingham's streets during the city's industrial heyday.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. As you know, I am now in the Antarctic. We are on a mission to try and find Shackleton's lost shipwreck, Endurance. In the meantime though, here's a favourite episode from our archive. Enjoy. Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Peaky Blinders, it's a global phenomenon, everyone's favourite TV show. Stylish, violent, troubling. It's all about the gangs, the thuggery, the underworld, the illegal gambling of Birmingham and a bit in London too at the turn of 19th, 20th century into the 1920s. The man who knows all about whether Peaky Blinders is accurate is historian Carl Chin. I've had lots of people on this podcast. I've had all sorts of people. I've had Nobel

Prize winners. Actually, I haven't. BAFTA winner. It's almost as good. And I've had lots of people on this podcast. I've had all sorts of people. I've had Nobel Prize winners. Actually, I haven't. BAFTA winner. It's almost as good. And I've had best-selling authors. I've had professors at every university on the planet. But Carl Chin is a one of a kind. He's a great communicator. He is a passionate activist.

He is a wonderful educator. So it's a real privilege to have him on the podcast. He's now also a fantastically best-selling author because his history, the real history behind the Beaky Blinders is, as you can imagine, very, very popular indeed with all the fans of that wonderful program. So enjoy this podcast of him telling you all about the truth, the fiction, the reality of gangland in Birmingham. This interview is filmed, so this will also go on History Hit TV, like so many of other interviews and lots of documentaries. Please go and check that out. Lots of people watching our Second World War archaeology at the moment, lots of people watching the Battle of Austerlitz film, we've got a Battle of Bulge film coming up, so please go and check that out on

historyhit.tv. We've got some exciting films that we're talking about for next year, all sorts of different topics, subjects, kinds of history. So looking forward to getting all those into production. In the meantime, everyone, enjoy the truth behind Peaky Blinders. Thanks very much for coming on the show. Thank you very much for inviting me. Now, Peaky Blinders is a global phenomenon, but you are here to tell me about the true... What is this story that we all love and we've all seen what is the historical story it's based on well the series has been passionate powerful pulsating pugnacious as you said it's gained an international audience

and it's got compelling performances by charismatic actors uh powerful modern soundtrack to a historical drama but there is a reality behind the glamour. And I think like all series about gangsters, we need to understand that the mafia type Don does not exist in reality. That the real gangsters of the 1920s and their forerunners, the real Peaky Blinders of Birmingham, the Scutlers of Manchester and Salford,

the Street Ruffians of London were not honourable men. They were not admirable men. They were not kind to children. They did not respect women and they did not care for the elderly. They were vicious. They were vile and they were violent. You're speaking with great authority because you're not only a historian, but you've got family links. Yeah, my great grandfather, Edward Derrick, horrible, nasty man,

a man for whom I have nothing but contempt, was a beaky blinder. He grew up in a dysfunctional family. His grandparents were both habitual criminals. In fact, his grandfather had been sentenced once for transportation, got away with it. His sons and daughters were brought up in the workhouse in Wolverhampton, and then one of them John moved to Birmingham his son my great-grandfather was a violent man he was sent down for two years for

assault on one occasion and another occasion he attacked a policeman and he used to come home regularly and brutally assault my great-grandmother Ada so he was not somebody to be admired and he was also a petty thief and what we've got understand is that the real Peaky Blinders of Birmingham of the 1890s and the turn of the 20th century were not major gangsters. Many of them were hard-working blokes who simply liked to fight and to inflict injuries upon other people. Others were like my great-grandfather. They were petty criminals and didn't do a day's work in their lives. But they had a coherent gang, did they? No, there was no one gang, Dan. There were numerous

gangs. The gang problem in Birmingham emerged in the 1860s. And this is something I wanted to look at because they don't emerge from a void. It's like the knife crime of today. Sadly, it hasn't just suddenly appeared out of nothing. There are reasons and factors behind it. The police force in Birmingham is a new thing in the 1840s. And at first, the police are reluctant to interfere in working class rough sports and illegal gambling. It's a different demographic, isn't it, Dan? You've got a majority of the population under 30. So on a Sunday, the Lord's Day, large groups of youth and young men are gathering on Wasteland to play rough sports.

There's no parks, there's no libraries, there's no swimming baths, to play rough sports and pitch and toss, throwing coins against a wall or a mark. And whoever gets them nearest, throws them up in the air. Those that come down heads, you keep. If there's any left, the next nearest throws them up. There's another game called tossing, where you put two pennies on your fingers,

and you stand in the middle of a ring and say, I'll toss them for, say, 50 pence. And you might say, I'll have 10 pence of that, and somebody else will have 10 pence, till it's covered, and you throw it up in the air. Two heads, I win if I'm tossing them up. Two tails, I have to pay you out. Heads and tails, I throw again. So at first, the police are reluctant to put these down. But in Birmingham, and I suspect elsewhere, there's a crusade against pitch and toss on the Lord's Day. And it's led by local vicars. They really put pressure on the police to intervene.

And this, in my opinion, leads to ruffians fighting back against the police and the formation of street gangs. From 1872, the street gangs of Birmingham were known as sloggers or slogging gangs. And that's from an old pugilistic term. To slog was to hit with a fierce blow. And they are fighting street against street. They are attacking the police. They hate the police.

And they also bedevil and benight the lives of the hardworking, respectable majority of the poor amongst whom they live. Tell me about Birmingham in this period. It's still in its industrial heyday. Is it one of the great industrial cities on earth? It is. Birmingham, if you pick up the history books about Birmingham, it will say that Birmingham in the late 19th century was the city of a thousand trades. And it was. And I grew up at the end of that era. And we were proud of that reputation, that we could make anything

you wanted, from a pin to a brass bedstead. Whatever you needed made a metal we could make. It was also renowned, thanks to an American journalist called Ralph, as the best governed city in the world, as a result of Joseph Chamberlain's time as mayor of Birmingham. He transformed Birmingham. But what those general history books don't tell you, that Birmingham was also denigrated as one of the most violent cities in England and as the city of the Peaky Blinders.

And that's the new term. Peaky Blinders is a new term that comes into the national press, the local press first, in March 1890. And so it's fights, it's petty crime. Is it housebreaking, mugging? Yeah, housebreaking, certainly. They will be involved in attacking.

Really, these gangs are like the gangs of Glasgow. Petty criminals are involved, but there's a lot of them just want to show who's the hardest, who's the toughest. In Manchester, you get articles in the Manchester newspapers about the king of the scuttlers, whoever's the hardest one. In Birmingham, it's not quite like that, but you get people who are named as the leaders of a slogging gang. And so it's about hardness. It's about our street being the toughest and fighting the next street. One of the most long-lasting feuds in Birmingham is between the Park Street gang, and Selfridges now overlooks Park Street in the heart of Birmingham,

with a gang four streets down, Milk Street, went on for over 30 years. So these are backstreet gangs, and the term Peaky Blinder is really much a fashion statement. On March 23rd 1890, an inoffensive bloke called George Eastwood went into a pub called The Rainbow in Birmingham on the corner of High Street, Borsley and Adderley Street. It's still there, although it's closed at the moment. And he's an inoffensive chap and he orders a

ginger beer. He's a teetotaler. He must like the atmosphere in pubs, but sadly, Dan, he's picked the wrong night to go in there. Three men, the birmingham mail on the monday night with an evil reputation came in one of them was thomas mucklow another was his brother-in-law george groom they lived in the street adler street and an unknown man and they start to insult paul george for drinking a soft drink and mucklow pushes him and goes what you're drinking that tack for what you're drinking that rubbish for and then they offer him out for a fight well he's not going to fight him is he at about quarter 11 mucklow groom and the unknown man leave and then poor george must have decided i'm going to go home now and as he left the pub he had to turn left under two railway viaducts it's dark and they jump out of

the darkness and chase him and they brutally assault him under one of the viaducts. They knock him down, they kick him about the street with steel toe cap boots and then Groom takes off his belt. This is the favoured weapon of the sloggers of Birmingham, the scuttlers of Manchester and Salford and they would wrap it around their wrist. Old-fashioned thick leather belts with heavy brass buckles and they would leave about eight inches and they would buckle it and then they would slash and slash. George was eventually in hospital for three weeks. He had that many contusions on his head through the kicking and the belting. He had to have an operation called trepanning, part of the skull cut out to relieve the pressure on the brain.

On the Monday following this terrible assault, it was said it was carried out by the gang of Peaky Blinders. That's the first time that the term Peaky Blinder comes into use in Birmingham in the press. Obviously, that suggests to me it's in use on the street before then. Thereafter, Peaky Blinders becomes the generic term for the hooligans of Birmingham, a term which arises in London, a hooligan in 1898, after a rowdy and boisterous and violent bank holiday August weekend. What did Peaky Blinders mean at the time? What was the slang for? The story I grew up with as an older Bromley, I'm 63, I'd heard stories like other Bromleys from my background. My mum was from Aston, my dad's from Park Brook. They were from the older parts of Birmingham.

The story I'd heard was that they sewed disposable safety razor blades into the peaks of their flat cap. And in a fight, they took them off and slashed them across the forehead of their enemy, hence causing blood to go into their eyes to blind them and allowing them to be beaten up. In the series, they say they slash the peak of the cap across the eyes to blind them.

It's a bit of a difficulty there. You've got to bridge of the nose. Actually, the real reason they call Peaky Blinders is much more prosaic. The Peaky Blinders were named after a fashion. They wore bell-bottom trousers, as did the Scottlers of Manchester and Salford. They were tight to the knee and then wide. In Manchester and Salford, they wore brass-tipped clogs. In Birmingham, they wore steel

toe cap boots. But they also had in Birmingham what's known as a daff, a handkerchief, twisted around the neck and knotted at the front. And they had close cropped hair, all over, close cropped. But a lot of them had a bit of a quiff of hair here, and they liked to show it off. The original hats they were were not flat caps. They were billycococks that's a kind of bowler hat that was the working man's headgear so the flat cap come in and they pulled the billycock to one side to allow the quiff to be shown off. Later on from the late 1890s as the flat cap took prominence as the most favoured headgear of the working class they would pull the peak of the cap so it blinded one eye. Hence, Peaky Blinder.

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What effect did the First World War have on these gangs and how did they emerge after the war? Well, the gangs disappeared before the First World War. And the series starts in 1919. It's about one gang called the Peaky Blinders of young men who'd been in the First World War. The reality is different. There was not one gang. There were numerous gangs of sluggers, stroke Peaky Blinders, and they had disappeared before the First World War. By 1910, the Birmingham newspapers are writing about the Peaky Blinders in the past tense. They've been put down for a variety of reasons. There's social reasons happening organically, Dan, not planned. So you've got a lot of concerned vicars, ministers, priests, putting on youth clubs. Pity politicians today don't learn

a lesson there, isn't it? They're putting on youth clubs. And there's new spectator sports as well as participatory sports that are taking off. Association football. The street gangs of Manchester and Salford, as Andrew Davis, his deep research has shown, start to play football against each other. In Birmingham, there's pub leagues. Well, each back street has got a pub.

And surveys of young lads before the First World War show that during their dinner hour from work, after work, on a Saturday after work, all day Sunday, they're playing football on waste ground. And there's another new sport that grabs the attention of tough lads. Boxing. Under the Marquess of Queensby rules. In the old nickel, a tough part of Bethnal Green,

Father Jay sets up a boxing club. In Birmingham, a very tough part of Birmingham, right by New Street Station, Hill Street, Father Pinchard does the same. There's a boxing ring, two pairs of gloves, and the lads fighting their clothes. At the same time, what I would call the pictures, but younger people would call the cinema,

is becoming a really powerful force of entertainment so there's these social changes happening and at the same time the stronger policing and more severe sentencing birmingham appoints in 1899 charles horton rafter as chief constable he is praised by many as the man who led the fight against the Peaky Blinders. Policemen were being killed. 1875, P.C. Lyons gets killed. Later on, P.C. Snipe is killed. P.C. Gunther is killed. Others are brutally assaulted and have to retire from service.

And what he does, Rafter, he recruits heavily young, fit men. And the story that was passed on in the Birmingham police was Rafter asked three things of his men. Can you read? Can you write? Can you fight? They had to fight. The Birmingham police force was 500 men on demand, according to the chief inspector of constabulary. So there's a recruitment campaign. That means two policemen per beat in the tough streets. Now, these aren't small men like my great-grandfather. He was five foot four and a quarter. Most of the Peaky Blinders were five-three, five-four, five-five.

These are tall men, strong men, broad-set men, five-nine and a half, five-ten, and they have to fight. So slowly, with these social changes, stronger policing, working-class confidence in the police increases, so now working-class people instead of being scared to give evidence are now giving evidence against gangs and the strongest sentences. And in 1915 one Birmingham newspaper said what has happened to the Bell Bottom fraternity, another term for the Peaky Blinders, they're either in the munition factories, Dan, or they're fighting at the front.

Let me give you one example. Henry Lightfoot, 1895, is the first individual to be called a Peaky Blinder. He's a petty thief. He gets arrested. The last offence he does, I think it was 1907, he gets arrested for stealing 12 scrubbing brushes. He's not big gangsters, but he's a violent man. In 1895, he tries to stab a policeman. He's sat down for nine months' hard labour and he's called in court a dangerous Peaky Blinder.

He joins up in 1914. He's thrown out because he punches a non-commissioned officer, unfit to become a soldier. He joins up again the next year at 41. He doesn't have to volunteer to fight. This man has broken the rules of his country and the laws. He's been a thief, a petty criminal, a violent thug. And then at the Battle of Assam in 1916, he's wounded badly. So most of the Peaky Blinders either were killed in the First World War or came home changed men, except for a few. And those few were the most vicious, violent, and the most able with their physical prowess. And they were members of a loose collection of pickpocketing gangs, racecourse rogues and ruffians, originally known as the Bromwich and Boys, and later as the Birmingham

Gang. And that was the gang, the Birmingham Gang, that went to war in the spring and summer of 1921 with an alliance of London gangs to control the racecourse rackets on the racecourse in the south of England. From the 1880s, this loose collection of rogues from Birmingham controlled the pickpocketing and extortion on bookmakers on the racecourses of the Midlands of the North. There were a few other gangs, but they were the most powerful and feared, this Birmingham gang. But in 1920, they also take over the racecourses and the rackets down south. They're led by a man called Billy Kimber. In the series, Billy Kimber is shown as a Londoner. In reality, he was a big burly Brummie born in 1882 in Hospital Street, Summer Lane.

But he's a clever man. He's violent, he's menacing, but he makes alliances. To take over down south, you've got to have London back up, haven't you? So he pals up with McDonald's of the Elephant Boys. Great book written about them by Brian McDonald, their nephew, called The Elephant Boys. He also pals up with another gang from north of the water,

the Camden Town Mob, George Brummie Sage. Not a Brummie, but he knocks about with the Brphant Boys. He also pals up with another gang from north of the water, the Camden's Howe mob, George Brummie Sage. Not a Brummie, but he knocks about with the Brummies. And these guys are now, they've been weaponised by their experience in the First World War? No, they were violent before the First World War, Dan. And most of them were deserters in the First World War. Billy Kimber deserted, he never fought. Most of them were either in jail during the First World War,

Jack Allard was another one. He was done for manslaughter in 1912, Jack Allard, a Birmingham gang member. He didn't come out till after the First World War. These men didn't need the First World War to become brutal. They were already brutal. In fact, most of the Peaky Blinders ceased to be brutal because of the First World War. And this vicious war erupts in the spring of 1921, when the real Alfie Solomon, not Alfie Solomon's Tom Hardy's character, his real name was Alfie Solomon. I interviewed his younger brother, Simeon Solomon, in 1987 in a pub in London. And they went to war.

Solomon was badly beaten up by the Birmingham gang. He turned to the governor of the East End Jewish underworld. He pulled in an up-and-coming Anglo-Italian gangster, Darby Sabini, who is portrayed in the series as an Italian. He was Anglo-Italian. He was born in Saffron Hill in Clarkham Hall. That leads to a vicious war. And it was a turbulent time politically.

Was that war noticed by the establishment? Do you read about this in the papers? You read about it in the Times, the Manchester Guardian, quality newspapers, as well as local newspapers. But it doesn't attract really the attention of politicians. And the idea that backstreet gangsters who have now become nationally notorious through their nefarious activities on the race courses of southern England have influence over politicians is not realistic. OK, so that's one of the criticisms you might have. I haven't got a criticism of the series as a drama. England have influence over politicians is not realistic. Okay. So that's one of the criticisms you might have. I haven't got a criticism of the series as a drama.

As I said earlier on, it's powerful. It's compelling. It's superbly written and it grabs attention. And it's been brilliant for Birmingham, Dan, whoever would have thought that Killian Murphy could make the Birmingham accent sound sexy.

We'd had Crossroads before. Now we've got Peaky Blinders. I know which one is better for Birmingham. So it's drawing in people to Birmingham, but there's a reality. And the reality is not glamorous. We've got to get that across to young people at a time when knife crime is a massive problem. Bedeviling the lives of so many good people today in many parts of London and Birmingham, Manchester, Salford and elsewhere. Violence is not glamorous. Gangsters are not glamorous. This book has been a runaway history smash hit of the year.

What do you do when people talk about overnight success? I got strong views on that. Well, yeah, my brother-in-law from Dublin, Michael, my wife Kay's from Dublin. We've been married 41 years. We met in Benidorm 42 years ago on a holiday. And my brother-in-law, Michael, rang me up the other week, said, Carl, what's it like

after 35 years hard work at the age of 63 and with a number of 34 books suddenly being an overnight success? I first wrote about the Peaky Blinders in 1986 in my doctoral thesis. I first wrote about the real Billy Kimber, the real Darby Sabini

and the real Alfie Solomon in a book I wrote in 1991 about illegal betting. But I wanted a section down about racecourse betting and that's how i first came to interview simeon solomon who betted under the name sydney lewis i interviewed a man called dave langham and he was a respectable and legitimate bookmaker a lovely man but his father georgie langham real name angelo janikoli was a major member of the Real Derby Sabini gang.

So I've interviewed people many years ago, and I've been collecting material for many, many years on the Peaky Blinders and the gangs of the 1920s. And on the other side of the family, the reason that I wrote about illegal betting is my granddad, Alf Chin, and my dad, Buck Chin, were both illegal bookmakers. It was against the law to have a bet for cash

away from the racecourse until 1961. And my grandad started taking bets illegally in Studley Street Sparkbrook off the Ladypool Road in 1922. There were no illegal betting shops in Birmingham like we see in the series. That's how the Shelby's were making their money at the start of Series 1.

It was against the law. It was a £100 fine to have a betting shop or a betting house, but it was a 10 pound fine if you took on the street. So in Birmingham and Manchester and Salford and Sheffield and Leeds, we took on the street. And my granddad was a street bookie. Well, you come from a long line of illegal bookmakers. You're now a very legal, notable maker of books,

but you don't just make books. You're not just a historian that talks to the academy. now a very legal, notable maker of books. But you don't just make books. You're not just a historian that talks to the academy. You're someone who takes your message to the streets. Tell me about the work you do with the community in Birmingham. I'm from the community. I belong to the people of Birmingham. That's the city I love.

And I work in lots of different schools with projects. And what the aim is really with the project work is to really liaise with teachers they're doing such great work Dan and it's such difficult work for them to do because the national curriculum is such a straight jacket with regards to history and the arts but a lot of teachers are so inspirational and they want to reach out to the youngsters and they realise the family history and local history is a way in a way to grab the attention of young people. You know, what was life like for you, nan and grandad? Then suddenly you can open it up. And in Birmingham, like London and many other parts of Britain, we have people who are descended

from folk who've come to the city from all over the world. So my aim is really to work with youngsters and the teachers to look at where their ancestors have come from and why we're all in Birmingham. Why are we all here? What has brought us together? What makes us all part of one city? My family have lived in Birmingham for over 200 years. That doesn't make me more of a Brummie than somebody that only came here 15 or 20 years ago. We all belong to the city. So I work on local projects, looking at local history, looking at family history, looking at First World War, particularly over the last few years, obviously with the anniversaries of the First World War, we've been

looking at war memorials, taking names and looking at who were these men. And also because Birmingham was such an important city for the munitions industry and female labour, what about the impact of women in the First World War? Well, that's just amazing to hear about the work you do and hear about the book. I mean, give us the name of the book. I'm sure everyone in the First World War. Well, that's just amazing to hear about the work you do and hear about the book. I mean, give us the name of the book. I'm sure everyone in the country has already bought it, but there might be a few out there who haven't. It's called Pinky Blinders, The Real Story, and it's the true story of Birmingham's most notorious gangs.

It's published by John Blake, part of Bonnier Books, and I'm just, well, it's quite surreal, Dan. It's all, after many years of work, it's quite surreal. Is there going to be another book? Yes, there is. I want to look at something else, but I'll tell you that another time. Come back and tell me another one. Thanks very much for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thanks, folks. You've reached the end of another episode hope you're still awake appreciate your loyalty sticking through to the end if you fancied doing us a favor here at History Hit I would be incredibly grateful if you would go and wherever you get these pods give a little rating five stars or it's equivalent a review would be great please head over there and do that it really does make a huge difference it's one of the funny things the algorithm loves to take into account so please head over there

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