Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 405 - The Real Peaky Blinders

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Today we learn about who the real Peaky Blinders were? How much of the hit BBC/Netflix series is historically accurate? Who were these stylish Birmingham gangsters?  Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/K2q9Q-swcUUMerch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. And you get the download link for my secret standup album, Feel the Heat.

Who were the real Peaky Blinders? They were an infamous Birmingham, England street gang. But they were never even remotely as powerful or as organized as the Shelby family from the hit BBC show Peaky Blinders that ran for six seasons from 2013 to 2022. Because of the popular TV series, a lack of many historical records, and so many rumors made up and spread over the past century, much of what people think about the gang today is a lot more myth than reality. There was no Shelby family attempting to break into the racehorse scene. They never went up against the mafia, let alone actually defeated any mobsters. There were no

razor blades sewn into their peach caps used to slash enemies when they least expected it. The history of the Peaky Blinders is muddy. They were never an official, highly organized gang like Billy Kimber's Birmingham Boys, who they did not defeat in real life. In fact, it was Billy who put an end, it seems, to the Peaky Blinders. Billy was actually once a Peaky Blinder himself in real life. One of many Peaky Blinders, many of whom never pulled off any hijinks together. The name Peaky Blinder, while originally reserved in all likelihood for one group of gangsters who were closely affiliated, eventually was used to describe any number of Birmingham

gangsters who dressed in a signature dapper style. The real Peaky Blinders were a group of juvenile delinquents, much more likely to steal your bike or throw a brick at you over something as inconsequential as looking at them the wrong way or drinking a ginger beer instead of one with alcohol in it. They were a group of rough and tumble miscreants, troubled youth, who grew up with nothing in the rugged slums of Birmingham and ended up joining loosely organized gangs full of other kids from the neighborhood who, for lack of a better description, just seemed cool. Kids who took no shit from anyone, not even the police. Kids who weren't afraid to take what they wanted.

To fight anyone for any reason. Kids who dressed in smart suits and new crisp newsboy caps, cocked to the side and pulled down over one eye. Kids who were the toughest dudes in some really tough neighborhoods. Who didn't have much in life other than some fancy clothes, a bit of someone else's cash in their pockets, and a tough guy reputation that made them a local celebrity. According to Professor Andrew Davies, who teaches modern social history

at the University of Liverpool and whose self-stated principal research interest is the history of crime, they have been described as the first modern youth cult and I think that really makes sense. Their clothing, their sense of style, their own language, they really do look like the full forerunners of the 20th century youth cults like punk. This description made me think about an old friend of mine, comic David Crowe, who once told me about, he was walking past some hardcore underground punk rock club late at night in downtown Seattle.

This would have been in the late 80s. Some big muscle dude with dyed black hair, lots of piercings and tattoos and leather, wearing Doc Martens stomper style boots that the British punk rock scene in the late 70s and early 80s originally popularized. This guy just popped out of the club, immediately just punched him right in the face. Hard enough to knock him down. This dude let out some kind of roar then stomped off into the night with some of his punk buddies. This guy was punk rock.

Anarchy in the UK. Or at least in Seattle. He dressed the part and he acted the part. The Peaky Blinders were the late 1800s and early 1900s equivalent of that guy. Someone who might hit you in the face just because your face was there and they felt like punching somebody in the face. They were closer to anarchists than organized gang members. I came across in the research some people describing them as something akin to the UK's football hooligans of the 1970s.

Right? These hooligans united by interest in a single team and often by whatever rough neighborhood they happen to grow up in. They were much more interested in kicking the shit out of the fans slash other hooligans of rival teams getting into massive bloody brawls that sometimes left dead bodies behind, than they were in their team actually winning matches. They were also usually poor, lacking in decent role models, and encumbered by a feeling of hopelessness regarding their future earning prospects. If they weren't ever going to get a good job or make it out of their shitty neighborhood, why not at least spread a little misery around? Get some local respect put on their name? Have a little nihilistic mayhem fueled fun?

The Peaky Blinders, while nothing like the Shelby family of the popular BBC show, they did terrorize and rule the mean streets of Birmingham for almost 20 years, and their historical story is worth telling. This week we'll discuss the myths versus the reality of the real Peaky Blinders, how the gangs of Birmingham formed in Victorian England, some of the confirmed Peaky Blinders and their crimes, as well as the rise of Billy Kimber and the Birmingham Boys, and more all on this historical fact versus fiction gangster by order of the Peaky fucking Blinders edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck.

Ah! You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday. Welcome to the Cult of the Curious. Back to a regular one-parter this week. Recording this before the last two episodes dropped, so still waiting to see if you like that or not. I'm Dan Cummins, the Suckmaster, Black Young Gens Handler, He-Man fan, and you are listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, hail Lusifena, praise me to Goodboy, Bojangles, and glory be to Triple M.

Did you know that Triple M? Michael motherfucking McDonald just published a memoir. It's called What a Fool Believes. ["What a Fool Believes"] A sweeping, evocative memoir. From the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Grammy Awards when he planned on selling singer-songwriter Michael McDonald. Written with his friends, Emmy Award nominated actor, comedian, and number one New York Times

best-known author, Paul Reiser. Paul Reiser. Paul Reiser-izer. Bummer, he does not seem to mention being one of the gods of the Time Stuck Podcast in his book. Hmm, strange. Triple M. He works in mysterious ways. Nevertheless, congratulations to Michael McDonald. I hope it's a bestseller.

That is Nimrod's will. And now it is time for the Pakey F**kin' Blinders. Here's how we're setting things up today. Since today's episode takes place in Birmingham, we'll first get to know England's second city. Then we'll examine some economic factors and the rapidly increasing population in the late ... We'll examine how, excuse me, some economic factors, and the rapidly increasing population in the late 19th century that led to Birmingham's so-called violent youth culture gave rise to the loosely organized slogging gangs from which the Peaky Blinders emerged. I'll share some details of how these gangs operated, what

types of crimes they committed. After that we'll examine the Peaky Blinders, how they dressed, who some of their members were, how they operated. Next we'll get into a bit of fact versus fiction comparing the BBC show to the real history of the Peaky Blinders, before jumping into a timeline examining contemporary newspaper accounts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries of their crimes. Finally, I'll explain what led to the demise of the Peaky Blinders, and then we'll follow the subsequent criminal actions of Billy Kimber, most successful gangster who came out of the Peaky Blinders.

Does that sound good? I'm going to assume he said yes. Or maybe even a fuck yeah, bro. most successful gangster who came out of the Peaky Blinders. Does that sound good? I'm gonna assume he said yes. Or maybe even a fuck yeah bro. The city of Birmingham, crown jewel of the British Empire, voted the UK's greatest city of peace and prosperity the last 17 years running in the Daily Telegraph's annual poll. Birmingham also voted the most beautiful city in the world

in 1996, 2008, 2015, again last year in 2023 in a Conde Nast travel magazine reader's poll. The UN, United Nations of all places, declared Birmingham the safest city in the world in both 2014 and 2019. It's made the top 10 every year since 1998 and is top lists of the best places in Europe to raise your kids for many years There hasn't been a single violent crime in Birmingham since 2015 Now I'm being incredibly sarcastic

Birmingham has long had the reputation as in for over 150 years of being one of the UK's roughest cities with some of the most dangerous neighborhoods Birmingham according to the web I've never been there personally, does not have a good reputation. I'm sure it has a lot of great neighborhoods and residents, but that's not what you hear about on the web. That's not what the folks over on YouTube seem keen to share with the world.

When I typed Birmingham, UK, nothing else, into YouTube search bar to reconfirm how to pronounce the word properly, so I'm not saying Birmingham, the very first video that came up was titled to reconfirm how to pronounce the word properly. So I'm not saying Birmingham. The very first video that came up was titled, UK's worst city. The thumbnail art for that video simply states,

Birmingham, I hate it. The video description, watch this video now to understand why Birmingham is the worst place in the world, never come here. This video, and there's so many like it, but this video posted by YouTuber Geopold, introduced me to the term Brummie, a word used mainly to describe someone from Birmingham, a Brummie, or the Birmingham accent or something that's, you know, comes from Birmingham. Here's

Geopold, not sure what his real name is, interviewing a Brummie, known just as Danny G, about his home city and just, you know, what he thinks about it. But you know something, you know when you get to a local park, yeah, and everybody's carrying and that's the only place for you to go because there's nothing else for you to do in Birmingham, right? Yeah. What are you supposed to do, man? They've got a local park.

I mean, my local park's being dismantled right as we speak. Yeah, we walk past it. You know what I mean? Jesus Christ. So now the kids haven't even got somewhere to play. That's why I want to leave Birmingham. It's the city itself. It keeps you down. It's the city itself.

It keeps you down. It oppresses you. It makes you into a person you don't wanna be. And while I live here, I can change somewhat to a certain degree, but I can never totally let it go. When I get out of this sh-hole, and it is a sh-hole,

I will be able to totally transform into a new, better Danny I think so many videos the word shithole is the word that comes out the most not you can't haven't been there I don't know that it's a shithole But a lot of people seem to think it's a shithole after a video comparing Birmingham England to Birmingham, Alabama in my search results The next videos are inside Birmingham's no-go zone Crime poverty and despair in the UK's Most Dangerous City, then a simple virtual tour video, there's those all over

the web, then a pros and cons video, then Birmingham City Center This Is Bad, and the Dark Side of Birmingham, England. Again, clearly Birmingham is a rough reputation. I did another search and just added the word news. You know, Birmingham UK news. The see what, you know, local news outlets or just news outlets in general are saying about Birmingham. A lot of murder, crazy road rage attack, caught on CCTV one of the videos, security camera footage of some masked men

robbing a shop using machetes. Some dude sentenced to life for a series of just random stabbings around the town. Lots of stabbings, lots of videos about stabbings. Birmingham seems in many ways as if it has not changed a lot since the days of the Peaky Blinders. Since they ruled the city. Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK. That's why it's sometimes called a second city with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper and a metro area population of 4.3 million.

Located about 120 miles northwest of London in the West Midlands, Metropolitan County. West Midlands is a metropolitan county of central England that also has a reputation. I mean full of poverty and violence. When you just put in West Midlands UK and YouTube, not a lot of good coming back. Like pretty much everywhere, every metropolitan area in the UK, Birmingham is an old city. There have been various settlements in what is now Birmingham for over 10,000 years, since at least as far back as 8,000 BCE based on archaeological discoveries. But the development of the area into the city we see today did not really begin until the 12th

century CE. The city's first charter was granted in 1166. It wasn't until the 14th century that Birmingham became a significant settlement because there was no water transportation, no rivers, oceans, etc. The city did not develop rapidly until the 18th century thanks to the Industrial Revolution. In the 16th century, the population was still less than 2,000 people, very small. Population then grew from 15,000 to 70,000 from the late 1600s to the late 1700s. After the passing of the Reform Act of 1832, Birmingham elected its own members to Parliament. The city was properly incorporated. Six years later in 1838, that same year, railways to Liverpool and London were completed, which helped it

grow immensely. In 1801, the population was 73,670. Over the next century, the population would explode, growing sevenfold, almost exactly, to 522,204 by 1901. So 73,000 to 522,000 in a century. Then over just the next two decades decades the population added another 200,000 people for a total of 919,444 in 1921. It would take a full century to add another 200,000 people to reach the most recent population of 1 million 1.143 million ascertained in 2021.

point one four three million ascertained in 2021. So what drove the rapid growth between 1801 and 1921? The picky fucking blinders or the industrial revolution. Birmingham quickly became a massive factory town for many, many years. Metal guns, jewelry, brass buttons, so much more were produced in Birmingham. Those first four, the buttons, the jewelry, the guns, metal, the main products. But just some of so many different products. Engineers James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine. Matthew Bolton, a man who financed and introduced the steam engine. William Murdoch, a man who worked with Watt and Bolton on the steam engine and figured out how to use coal gas

for lighting. As well as chemist Joseph Priestley, who discovered oxygen in carbonated water. And John, or maybe identified it's better than discovered for oxygen. It's not like it wasn't around before him. He identified oxygen. And John Baskerville, a manufacturer and man who revolutionized commercial printing. These guys all lived in Birmingham during the Industrial Revolution and contributed greatly to its rapid technological progress. In the late 1700s when the Industrial Revolution kicked off, Birmingham quickly became

its British heart and it only became more and more industrious heading into the 1800s. Birmingham, not London, is considered the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the UK. During World War II, the city was heavily bombed but kept production going and was mostly reconstructed after the war. Still today, despite the Nazi World War II, the city was heavily bombed but kept production going and was mostly reconstructed after the war. Still today, despite the Nazi World War II air raids, Birmingham remains one of the UK's largest manufacturing hubs, with over 100,000 people currently working in engineering and manufacturing, mainly in light industry manufacturing, which is defined as the production of small goods that will be sold to the people who use them rather than to another manufacturer.

Examples of light industries are food, paper, plastic, leather, textiles, wood, and household appliances. A lot of medium manufacturing also still done in Birmingham. It's a very blue-collar city. Medium industry defined as medium-scale industry is the industrial undertaking where more than 20 and less than a hundred workers are manufacturing or processing goods with the aid of power or without the aid of power. So a lot of you know small manufacturing

centers. All this industry earned Birmingham the nickname of the city of a thousand and one different trades. And now let's revisit crime in Birmingham since crime is so central to this story. In the 1800s as I just went over the population of Birmingham exploded. Jumped from approximately 70,000 to around 500,000 people by 1900. And while this massive population growth came with some benefits people were moving to Birmingham thanks to the city continually adding new industrial jobs and also came with a whole host of new problems right. Poverty, unsanitary living conditions, increased crime. The UK website Crime and Investigation writes,

during the Industrial Revolution it was known as a city of a thousand trades. I guess they added one later. Whereas Liverpool's wealth came from its docks or Manchester from its mills, Birmingham was incredibly diverse. The Industrial Revolution gave rise to a huge number of highly specialized, creative small firms each profiting by exploiting niche areas of the market. Birmingham would and could make anything, from buttons and buckles to jewelry, steam engines and guns. It was perhaps inevitable that its gangs would be equally innovative in their approach.

Unlike the unemployed cornermen of Liverpool or the thrill-seeking teenage scuttlers of Manchester, the Birmingham gangs were professional criminals. In Victorian Birmingham, poverty was widespread. Most of all the new jobs you know were low paying ones and poverty was a key factor that led to the formation of the Birmingham Street gangs like the peaky fucking blinders. And I'm not surprised right? Isn't poverty and the feeling of hopelessness that so often accompanies poverty pretty much always the key factor in the formation of gangs in any given area? I mean, if an area is affluent or if everyone's just making enough money to pay for at least some version of the life that they want, there's not nearly as much incentive to risk incarceration to make some extra dough is there. Many people in Birmingham and most of Europe experienced severe economic hardship or poverty in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the poor were younger overall than they are now due to a shorter lifespan

back then which definitely helped give rise to youth gangs. A newborn boy born in England in 1841 was only expected to live to the age of 40. A newborn boy born in England today expected to live twice that long to the age of 40. A newborn boy born in England today expected to live twice that long, to the age of 79. For girls, life expectancy in 1841 was 42. Now it's 83. Due to this, the population overall skewed much, much younger back then than it does today. Also, while I couldn't find stats for comparative purposes, anecdotally and based on a lot of 19th century British literature, it sure seems like there were a lot more orphans in England in the 1800s and now,

which would make sense. If more people are dying young of disease, warfare, accidents, etc. during an era when doctors saved a lot less lives than they do now, then there's going to be a lot more orphans than there are now. And since the state did not take care of orphans in 19th century England, there would have been a lot more homeless young people having to fend for themselves than there are now, which you know would lead to a lot of youth directly into a life of crime and into joining up with fellow impoverished, neglected, disaffected youth, right? Gangs like the Peaky fucking Blinders. The crimes Birmingham youth committed during these days of the Peaky Blinders, reek of rage of people violently and impetuously lashing out at society and frustration over the state of their lives and feelings of hopelessness more than it does of

Sophisticated criminals running highly profitable crime enterprises as you'll see in the timeline Young gang members often robbed and pickpocketed just whoever happened to be walking through their neighborhoods wasn't a lot of planning in these crimes Crimes of opportunity thieves often assaulted stabbed, strangled victims in just broad daylight. Another factor in the rise of youth gangs in the city in addition to more impoverished young people, though there also wasn't the amount of law enforcement to stop or catch kids as there is today, which of course provided that much more incentive to commit crimes, you know, less likely to get caught. And also forming the gangs to protect themselves primarily from other young people committing the same type of crimes.

In a BBC program called The Original Peaky Blinders, Britain's Biggest Dig, British historian and author Carl Chin, a man who seems to be the world's foremost expert on the real Peaky Blinders, he has cited in almost every article you will read about them, reported, poverty was widespread in Victorian Britain. There's this paradox of the wealthiest nation in the world with so much poverty. The poor are living in badly built housing, crammed into a tightly packed area.

And then in Birmingham, London, all the big cities, railway lines are being built. Whose homes are being knocked down for them? Poorer people. So this poverty, this state seeming lack of care and respect for people living in these neighborhoods. All this more leads to an explosion of extreme youth violence in Birmingham by the late 19th century. Prior to the crime explosion the streets of Birmingham were already filled with gambling dens and

youth participating in a lot of rough sports like you know boxing, rugby, other games that preceded rugby. There were few well-paying job opportunities or healthy outlets for boys and young men. So many turned to crime for cash, entertainment, sense of pride. I should say that those sports, you know, rugby, it was not through like proper leaks. It was just, you know, kind of a sloppily done. It wasn't like a boys and girls club or YMCA or some kind of youth leak because that will come later and actually help the crime. But anyway, Carl Chin in the same interview speculated to the mindset of many of the young

men and boys joining these gangs saying, it's a hard world that they're living in. And hardness is a quality valued by young men in a world where they are nothing. What's the only thing they can say they're better at than the better off? Fighting. And fighting seemed to be a big part of Peaky Blinder culture. As you'll see again when we get into the arrest reports and the timeline. These guys weren't coming up with clever ways to break into a bank vault, they weren't

making money by running gambling halls, they were beating the shit out of people and taking shillings out of their pockets. They were breaking into local businesses and then if they got caught in the act, they'd beat the shit out of the storekeeper. They were getting into pub brawls, punching cops who tried to arrest them. They were just tough guys. Something described by sociologists and cultural anthropologists as a violent youth culture began to form in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Birmingham. Although crime was already common in the Birmingham and other large cities, this new wave of crime went beyond pickpocketing, burglary, and theft.

Youth began to more frequently engage in violent assaults, stabbing, stranglings. Author Philip Gooderson wrote in his book, The Gangs of Birmingham. There, the Peaky Blinders, existence, have been largely forgotten until recently, when our contemporary concern with the rise of juvenile as opposed to criminal gangs, first in the USA and then in Britain and elsewhere, opened our eyes to hidden elements in our Victorian past. Youth is now a precious commodity that we are anxious to put to good use. Youth in 1870 was abundant and was swamping Victorian cities in a surge of humanity caused by the high birth rates and by

the demands of the industrial economy for cheap labor. These urban children had to learn quickly to survive. They were expendable. In the 1850s through the 1870s the Victorian middle class pressured the police to crack down on rough sports and youth gambling in the poorer sections of Birmingham. In 1853, the Bedding Houses Act outlawed cash betting outside of race courses. In April 1858, Birmingham Daily Post article directly connected street gambling to police assaults. By the 1870s, these tough kids, these so-called ruffs, started joining forces and forming fighting gangs. This led to the rise of the infamous slogging gangs that would give birth to the peaky fork and blinders. In

the 1820s to the 1840s the term slogger was used to describe someone who struck an opponent with a heavy blow in a fistfight, typically in a boxing match. This term would later be used for street gangs, full of punch-happy delinquents. Young people in Birmingham formed slogging gangs in their free time, as in when they weren't working. These early sloggers, they weren't full-time criminals. They were dudes who basically like to fuck people up, make some extra money when they weren't at work. They were typically between the ages of 12 and 25. On Saturdays after work and on Sundays, instead of going to watch a game or head to the gym, these guys go to the movie theater. These guys would gather at local cemeteries

that would later be converted to parks. They didn't have city parks this time. They gathered at pubs and on street corners and just caused some mayhem. The idea of a gangster who can't meet up with his fellow gang members to fight a rival gang or shake down some shopkeeper because they have to go to work. That some belt buckle or boot factory really cracks me up. These guys like they did have regular jobs. Regular jobs and free time they would cause mayhem. That's so funny to me.

Arthur, we need you around the king's head pub tomorrow night. Shiken them down at noon, yeah? Noon, yeah? Yeah, Arthur, noon. We need your muscle, mate. We need all the right proper slogans we can get, yeah? I would have liked me to crack some skulls, Roger, dust off my brick beds. I'd rather like to split the skull of that cunt bartender, Tommy Wock. I know you'd cut him down right proper, mate.

That's why we need you. Thing is, I'm on shift at the buckle factory till four o'clock. Anyway, you can push off, robbing that prick for just a few hours. Nah, we can't, mate. There's gotta be work at the teapot factory by two. Just mate supervisor. Make an extra three shillings a day, he is. Rabbit don't start his shift at the porcelain doll factory till four. Can't lose his job, mate.

He's had to work three months since getting laid off into pickle plant. Polly'll have his head. It's got to be noon. Right, well, there it is then. I'll have to miss this one, Roger. I'm still on for the knife fight on Saturday. Since that's my day off. Those guys might have morphed into Australians at some point there.

These guys weren't working their day jobs. They were people who you did not want to meet in a dark alley. They weren't afraid to not only assault whoever walked into their neighborhood, rival gang members, the police. Many of these sloggers would become the initial Peaky Blinders. Slogging gangs would fight in battles for control primarily of the Birmingham inner city areas of Small Heath and Cheapside. Rough teens began fighting in mass brawls that would sometimes last for hours. That's what it says in some of the sources, hours.

No thanks. I have a hard time wrapping my head around how a brawl could go on for hours. I've done some like boxing workouts off and on, took some martial arts classes, you know, here and there when I was younger. It's fucking exhausting. Sparring is exhausting. I have so much respect for boxers, kickboxers, MMA fighters, wrestlers, anyone who fights in combat sports. Not just for the like courage it takes to go up against somebody in a, you know, in a ring fighting them and to be able to withstand the punishment that you're going to receive. But also it's just incredibly physically taxing just aerobically. Even if you just punch a heavy bag, if you haven't done it before, you'll be shocked at how much energy it takes just to stand there and punch something.

How do these guys fight for hours? It must have been a lot of breaks. A lot of watching other people fight. You know, then you get in, fight for yourself, then take another break, you know, watch again. I'm gonna bash you fucking skull in, Jack! Just need to take a sit for a spare, mate. Just maybe rest me knuckles, do some hamstring stretches, focus on me breathing. Then I'll be right bashing you to shite with a brick! The Cheapside Slogging Gang was the most brutal of the early Birmingham youth gangs He formed sometime around 1870 led by two young men initially John Adrian and James Grinrod They were known primarily for their weapon of choice This is a fucking horrible weapon a heavy buckled belt that they would use to pummel the shit

Out of both male and female victims so they can mug them, start fucking whipping you with a belt buckle. This fighting style would be emulated by other sloggers of the day and later by the peaky blinders. They would take off their leather belts, wrap, I don't know, half or so of the belts around one of their hands, form a fist, and then just whip a heavy metal belt buckle into their victims. A buckle that later would be sharpened into like, you know, the be sharpened so it sliced you in addition to bludgeon you.

Imagine getting hit with that. Also how many of you just thought about how fun it would be to whack somebody with a belt maybe with like a small buckle. Right high school maybe even college me. Ah god I would have loved to whip some fools around with a belt. Probably be so satisfying. Kyler Monroe and I this past year started doing this thing where we'll slap each other in the face with a wallet. You might think that they started that, no it was me. What you do is you wait until the other person is not paying attention and then you just hold your wallet in a way so that you're holding just like one half of a wallet that like you

know folds out from the middle and you swing the wallet open you know again you hold that one half and then the other half just like whips out and ideally just gets a nice satisfying smack on the cheek of who you're trying to hit you know just a pop oh I feel so good I hit Monroe on a real good on an escalator at the Logan Airport in Boston she was going down one escalator I was on another both going down she wasn't paying attention we were parallel to each other and I just got just a nice solid smack and she got so mad she chased me for legitimately probably five minutes through the

airport and then she got me back later so hard I didn't want to play anymore. Kyler got me so hard in the ear my ear rang for a bit and it wasn't quite as much fun after that. But doing it to other people, that is satisfying. In addition to belts, the sloggers used their fists to fight. They also kicked each other with steel-toed boots, stabbed one another with small knives, and like to throw bricks at one another. Like to throw bricks at the police, mugging victims, whoever. Fucking loved brick. No one has ever loved to

throw a brick more than the Peaky fucking Blinders. At least one police officer in Birmingham in the late 1800s was beat to death with bricks. They did not like on the Peaky Blinders TV show slice each other with razor razor blades though hidden their hats. Rival gangs soon formed to fight the initial sloggers the Cheap Side slogging gang for their territory. Land grabs or taking over a neighborhood became the primary goal of each street gang like the Peaky Blinders who had control of the neighborhood who owned right their street their corner. Soon it seemed like youth gangs had taken over all of Birmingham but again many

probably not affiliated with one another. And also many, if not most of the members were Irish. This episode ended up reminding me a lot of the Irish mob suck, episode 343. Tensions between Catholic Irish immigrants and British Birmingham Protestant residents were a core cause of the violence between the slogging gangs. During the Great Famine, aka Great Hunger, aka the Irish Potato Famine that began in 1845 and lasted until 1852 that led to roughly a million Irish deaths, a ton of Irish immigrated to England. Irish population in Birmingham alone doubled between 1841 and 1851 and it wasn't like you know middle-class or rich Irish were coming over. There's just almost exclusively dirt poor half-starved Irish who ended up living in

the slums of Birmingham and faced harsh discrimination. And Birmingham's English natives, you know, they did not welcome these Irish immigrants into the city with open arms. In June of 1867, an estimated 100,000 English protesters destroyed and looted an unknown number of Irish homes in various riots across Birmingham that became collectively known as the Murphy riots. Then instead of protecting the Irish and making arrests the police sided with the rioters. They didn't like him either. The Irish unsurprisingly became more protective and territorial of their communities in Birmingham and started to

rely on each other and local gangs rather than law enforcement. One of the first Irish sloggers following these riots was Thomas Joyce, a laborer whose parents were from Ireland and then moved to Park Street in Birmingham. Joyce watched his family home get destroyed during these riots. He went on to become the leader of the Park Street gang. It was known for being particularly brutal in a fight. On April 8, 1872, the Birmingham Daily Post reported on a slogging gang riot, one of the first time these sloggers were mentioned in print. On April 7th, a large body of roughs had gathered in the neighborhood of Chiefs.

I said, watch out for the roughs. About 400 people caused a massive disturbance, destroyed shop windows before moving on to Hill Street, throwing bats and stones, a lot of bricks at storefronts there. Sadly, as is so often the case with riots, the rioters did most of their damage in their own neighborhood before they took the violence to another neighborhood full of some of their oppressors. Not that random innocent people live in this other neighborhood also deserve to have their businesses busted up or homes destroyed. The slogging gang harassed passerby in the air for several hours until the police arrived to break it up. The sloggers then fled towards Cheapside, were met by another group of police officers.

Each person arrested was fined 20 shillings or spent three weeks in prison. Over the next few years, slogging gangs were involved in countless assaults and stabbings. One judge said in 1877 at the Northampton Aziz, which is like a court system over there that used to exist, night after night the streets of Birmingham became the scene of an almost irrepressible violence and brutality. Thomas Gilbert, also known as Kevin Mooney, was involved in a lot of this violence and brutality. He is one of the original Peaky Blinders. There's a lot of speculation that the character of Thomas Shelby, leader of the BBC version of the Peaky Blinders, is at least

partially based on Gilbert. Gilbert was a main instigator of these early land grabs. Under him the Blinders would become a known gang that operated mainly in the cheap side and small Heath areas of Birmingham. Let's now discuss how the Peaky Blinders operated, how the TV show influenced our perception of the Street King. Right after today's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks.

And I'm back. If you don't wanna hear these ads, get the entire catalog ad free and more by signing up to be a space lizard on Patreon for five bucks a month. And now we return to find out how the real Peaky Blinders operated. Peaky Blinders operated in Birmingham from the late 1880s to the 1910s. They were mostly comprised of young criminals from the bottom rungs of Birmingham's economic ladders in its worst neighborhoods and were often of Irish descent, as I mentioned. They committed crimes like robbery, beatings, racketeering, illegal bookmaking and gambling,

and occasionally even murder. But as you'll see, some real, real senseless murders as opposed to strategic hits, like you'd see with an organized crime outfit like the mafia. Many of the Peaky Blinders often wore signature outfits, tailored jackets, lapel overcoats, buttoned-up waistcoats, silk scarves, bell-bottom trousers, leather boots, their now iconic peaked flat caps aka newsboy or baker boy caps. Dressing dapper was part of being a Peaky F**king Blinder. Just like kicking ass in street fights, it just made him feel important, I'm guessing. Peaky Blinders, after defeating other rival gangs, dominated, terrorized much of Birmingham for almost two decades. By 1910, the Birmingham boys,

led by Billy Kimber, had taken over. Billy Kimber being a former Peaky Blinder himself. Following the demise of any actual gang, their legacy would remain for decades and the name Peaky Blinder would become slang for all street gangs in Birmingham, just like the term slogger was a few decades before. The original Peaky Blinder started in Small Heath, an area of Birmingham about two miles from the city center. In the 19th century, it turned into a place for the wealthy to escape the inner city. But then as Birmingham further industrialized and more factories downtown led to the need

for more workers near downtown, the area became working class and full of terraced housing estates aka row houses, big blocks of homes with shared walls with the homes on either side of them. The blinders first activities I mentioned mostly focused on occupying favorable areas of Birmingham like small Heath and Cheapside. And their first rival was the Cheapside sloggers. After gaining territory, the blinders ramped up their criminal activity, kind of. Most historians agreed they were more focused on fighting, robbery, and racketeering than the highly organized

crime depicted in the TV show. For example, the Blinders participated in something called Constable Baiting, or attacks on police officers. At least three officers were killed by Peaky Blinders. The Peaky Blinders beat their victims with those belt buckles like I mentioned earlier, metal tip boots, fire irons, canes, knives, and revolvers primarily. We don't have a lot of historical records about the game and a lot of what we do have just unearthed in 2013. Photos and records of the Peaky Blinders were hidden away in the West Midlands Police Museum at the back of the Spark Hill police station for over a hundred years. From the records

rediscovered in that police station we now know a bit about some of their members. Member Henry Lightfoot, oh he's a he's a fun one we're gonna get to know him a lot the timeline. Infamous for his extensive criminal record, a lot of really dumb crimes. First photographed by the Birmingham City Police in 1904. Philip Gooderson, the author of The Gangs of Birmingham wrote, Lightfoot was a hardened rough rather than a slogger. And many of those later dubbed Peaky would not have the extensive criminal record that he had acquired.

Kevin Mooney, aka Thomas Gilbert, the OG Peaky Blinder we met, also had a lengthy criminal record. Gilbert was born in 1866. He was 38 at the time of his being arrested and photographed in 1904, making him a lot older than most members of the Peaky Blinders. Worked as a fishmonger for his day job. He was arrested in October of 1904 for false pretenses, claiming to be someone he was not when questioned by the police, running some scams. We'll learn about that later. A 13-year-old

member, David Taylor, arrested in 1904 as well for carrying a loaded gun. 19-year-old baby-faced Henry slash Harry Fowles arrested for stealing a bicycle. These are not major crimes usually. 1904, Harry was born in 1885, described as having light brown hair, gray eyes, and a pale face. His listed occupation was barman. 19-year-old Ernest Hayes also arrested that day for stealing a bike. 24 year old Stephen McHickey broke into a shop in October of 1904, received an eight-month sentence. He was born in 1879, had black hair, brown

eyes, a sallow complexion, had tattoos of a woman on his left and right arms. One of the names was Louisa. His listed occupation was metal roller, guy who operated rolling and milling machines to flatten temper form and reduce sheet names was Louisa. His listed occupation was metal roller, guy who operated rolling and milling machines to flatten temper form and reduce sheet metal sections and to produce steel strips. So one of the city's many factory workers when he wasn't causing mayhem. The West Midlands police described Fowls, McHickey and Hayes as picky fucking blinders. No, they were described as foul-mouthed young men who stalked the streets and drunken groups,

insulting and mugging passersby. Many of the original Peaky Blinders would go on to fight in World War I, but unlike in the BBC show, by the time that war was over, so were the real Peaky Blinders. Henry Lightfoot joined the army, fought in the battle of, oh man, I forgot to look this pronunciation up, Somme, perhaps? Somme? S-O-M-M-E? France? I don't even know if it's in France. It was a battle! He fought a battle in 1916.

Henry Fowles was buried alive for 12 hours in a trench following a mortar bombardment. After being removed from the trench, he could not speak or see for a long period of time, according to historian Corrine Brazier. He made a living after the war for a while by selling postcards of himself dressed as a female nurse And I wish we had more info on that Kareen For the postcards supposed to be comical or sexy Did he sell a ton of these postcards with a huge hit a massive success? Or was he hanging out on a downtown street corner mostly telling people to build a lookout for aliens trying to read their minds Who sometimes you know was then sometimes he was also like check out my postcardcard i was a fine young lass yeah i could bugger myself if i would uh now that we know

the history of the burmese street gangs have briefly met a few of their members let's talk about some of the myths that have muddied the truth about the peaky blinders where does the name peaky blinders come from the popularized myth is that the peaky blinders you know sewed razor blades into the peaks of their flat caps, used them as makeshift weapons, they'd slice, they'd blind you with this razor blade. Down you go by order of the Peaky fucking Blinders. However, that origin story almost certainly bullshit because Gillette produced the first disposable safety razor in 1903 in the US.

First manufacturing factory opened in Great Britain in 1908. Meaning that the blinders used disposable razor blades as weapons in their heyday. Very, very unlikely. Where does that myth come from? Well, it comes from a 1977 novel in all likelihood called A Walk Down Summer Lane written by Birmingham author John Douglas. He wrote that hats were used as weapons by Birmingham gang members who would headbutt their enemies, blind them, or slash their foreheads, which would cause blood to fall into their eyes that they couldn't see to fight. He wrote that some men wore a peaky blinder and the peak was, quote, usually slit open in pennies or razor blades or pieces of slate inserted and stitched up again.

The caps were, quote, whipped off the head, swiped across the opponent's eyes, momentarily blinding them or slashing their cheeks. I doubt it. A historian and author Carl Chen thinks this is bullshit. its eyes, momentarily blinding them or slashing their cheeks. I doubt it. Historian and author Carl Chen thinks this is bullshit. According to Chen, there's no evidence to suggest they kept blades in their hats. He told an interviewer for the website alovemanchester.com, I've gone through hundreds of court cases and newspaper articles. There was absolutely no evidence. That's a myth that emerged actually in the

late 1920s, he said, in the, and took off in the 50s. And I guess that guy wrote that book about it. According to Chen, the blinders used their boots and belt as their main weapons. They wanted to maim, they were vicious men, but they were not big gangsters like we see in films. A few like Billy Cameron went on to become major gangsters, but that was a minority. In a video for a BBC interview, he demonstrated, Carl did, how ineffective this razor blade hat situation would be. He sold me. Right?

How in the heat of battle, if you went to grab your hat, you'd be more likely to slice yourself than you would be to slice someone else. Right? This is a chaotic moment. And also, you'd have to take off your hat to slice somebody, pull it back, then kind of whip it forward to slice someone at close range. You know? And if you're going up against some other tough guy, when you pull your arm back to whip that razor blade, they're just

going to fucking punch you in the mouth or worse. Right? I went back and watched some scene to the Shelby boys slicing up dudes with their hats on the TV stories. It is pure just cinema fiction, right? That shit would never work in a real fight. Get the fuck out of here or not like, you know, maybe one in a thousand times. Chen believes the name is a reference to Peaky Blinders. Two of the blinders quote,

sartorial elegance. Sartorial being defined as related to tailoring clothes or a style of dress. The slang term Peaky referred to flat caps with Peaks, just the hats they wore. Those were Peakeys. And Blinder was slang at the time in Birmingham for somebody who was an especially stylish or dapper dresser. So they were just you know guys who dressed well and wore those flat caps. Yeah and as it got over they were a stylish bunch. They wore tailored clothing, very uncommon at the time for gang members and petty criminals and thugs. Most of the blinders wore that flat cap. They wore an overcoat, wore their hair cropped on the sides with a little quiff in the front, little pompadour like hairstyle,, kind of cocked off to one side, which would peek out from

under their hats. They liked to pull the peak of their hat down over one eye, have their hair, just a little fashion statement, kind of popped out of the other side. Yeah, they wore tailored suits with bell-bottom trousers and button jackets. Members with more money wore silk scarves, starch collars with metal tie buttons. Their wives, girlfriends, mistresses wore luxurious clothing like pearls, silk, colorful scarves. Just like with the hardcore punk scene I referenced earlier, they had a dress code.

I imagine it made them feel cool and special, stating that they were badasses, tough guys not to be trifled with. Also, the Peeky Blinders outfits distinguished them from members of other gangs, which is important in a big chaotic brawl. Reminds me of the Bloods and Crips, right? Wearing either red or blue. When you're attacking different people, when there's bodies flying all around, you know, it'd be nice to kind of be able to quickly recognize

who's on your side, who's not on your side. The clothing also symbolized wealth, luxury and power. Qualities of the blinders, you know, may not have actually had much of, but very much desired. And their dress code may have also been a statement against the police. Even though the blinders were easily identifiable because of their clothing, the police often still could not do much to stop them. Just a little fuck you to the authorities. One more thing, and this is just pure speculation. The P.E. blinders

may have also enjoyed dressing like they did because they were neighborhood celebrities. Notorious street criminals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the closest thing Birmingham would have to today's reality TV stars. And the middle class in Birmingham was obsessed with reading stories about them. Dr. Eloise Moss, a professor at Manchester University, specialized in modern British history with a focus on crime, said in an interview with the Daily Mail, If you think about how popular reality TV is today, it's the Victorian version of that,

of finding out what's going on in your local area. The crimes that have been committed, the bad guys, the scandal. So it becomes a lot more exciting to read. It is the birth of the modern tabloid press. Crime is the most commercial form of entertainment news in Victorian Britain. They're doing something people can only really aspire to, breaking the rules. It can be seen as a form of social mobility. You may well want to be featured by the press if you're a member of a gang in this period because it gets your

name out there. You become notorious. One unfortunate difference between the BBC Peaky Blinders and the Real Blinders was they were not good to women. One gang member's girlfriend told a reporter for the Birmingham Weekly Post, he'll pinch you and punch you every time he walks out with you. And if you speak to another chap, he don't mind kicking you. No, I shouldn't like him as well, if he didn't knock me about a bit. And dear God, that is a sad quote. Holy shit. That poor unnamed woman clearly was raised to associate love with violence, assuming her father beat her as well.

Or beat her mother, or most likely beat them both. And then she repeats the cycle of abuse as an adult since it has a dark nostalgic comfort to it. Another example of a Peaky Blinder women abuse is the murder of 18-year-old Emily Pym, called the Summer Lane Kicking Case. In November of 1898, 18-year-old gang member James Harper kicked and stomped on Emily for breaking a jug over his head. Just stomped her to death. Sentenced to just six years in jail after that because the judge didn't

want him to spend the rest of his life in prison. Okay, about to jump into the timeline now. But first let's check in with Stephen Knight. This is the guy who came up with, who created the BBC TV show to hear how much of real life he based his series in. A night told Jonathan Wright from historyextra.com that his inspiration for the show came mainly from his father's encounter with some local gangsters. As a boy, his dad told him he was one sent to deliver a message, said he encountered a group of eight well-dressed men sitting around a table covered in money.

They were smoking, they were drinking, they were wearing peak caps, right? Nice suits, guns in their pockets. According to Knight, they were drinking, they were wearing peaked caps, right? Nice suits, guns in their pockets. According to Knight, just that image, smoke, booze, these immaculately dressed men in the slum in Birmingham. I thought that's the mythology. That's the story. That's the first image I started to work with. It's very loosely based in truth. Knight's father's uncle was a Peaky Blinder. His family told him brief stories about some gang fights, men dressed in suits. Knight said in another interview,

my parents, particularly my dad, had these tantalizing memories of from when he was nine or 10 years old to these people. They were incredibly well-dressed. They were incredibly powerful. They had a lot of money in an area where no one had money and they were gangsters. In another interview, one I read early in my research

and sadly I could not find again, Knight said something to the effect of not letting truth get in the way of a good story when it came to the Peaky Blinders. Essentially while they were real when it came to individual characters, the types of crimes they committed, how organized they were, etc., how powerful, he didn't let historical fact get in the way of entertainment. And you know, that take worked out very well for him. Over six seasons the show has won countless awards, was loved by critics, episodes in its final two seasons were watched by over 5 million viewers in just the UK on BBC and it was

picked up and distributed worldwide by Netflix. And a movie in place of a seventh season is expected to come out sometime later this year or early next year. Alright now let's meet some of the real Peaky Blinders mentioned earlier and discuss the original newspaper accounts of their crimes in today's Time Suck Timeline. Right after today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. And I am back and now it is actually time for our timeline.

Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a Time Suck Timeline. for our timeline. The Birmingham Daily Mail reported on trials of prisoners on January 5, 1888. This is the earliest account we have of somebody who would later be identified as a Peaky Blinder being arrested. 16-year-old Henry Lightfoot indicted for stealing a woolen jacket. So yeah, not exactly a major crime. Wasn't picked up for dealing a kilo of cocaine, running a prostitution ring, or for murder. Just a kid. Arrested for stealing a jacket. By order of the Peaky fucking Blinders, my jacket now. November 18th, 1887, a young boy had witnessed him stand on another boy's shoulders. So sad. Pulled down the jacket like something out of a fucking orphan, orphan Annie type movie. Jacket was hanging over the entry of his shop on Coventry Road. Lightfoot and the young man were both arrested. Excuse me, but the second boy not identified in the paper. Lightfoot was found guilty,

sentenced to six months of hard labor and a year of supervision for this crime. This was his third conviction in a year. The judge warned him that he would be sentenced with penal servitude if he continued committing crimes. Peaky Blinders, as a criminal organization, first mentioned the news on March 24, 1890, for the brutal attack of a young man named George Eastwood. And this is absurd. This is not the kind of crime you'd expect the Shelby clan to commit on the show. Well, maybe Arthur would do this.

Arthur would absolutely do this. Still, it's so stupid. This poor Eastwood guy crossed Coventry Road, a blinder hot spot, stopped in for a drink at the Rainbow Pub, where he ran into Peaky Blinder, Thomas Mucklow, his accomplices and his night took a hard turn for the worse. On the night of this attack, March 22nd, 1890, Thomas Mucklow and his buddies beat the fuck out of Eastwood all because they saw him order a non-alcoholic ginger beer. That seems to be it.

These assholes started mocking him for ordering a soda and they made fun of him so bad he left. And then not satisfied with running him out of the pub, they followed him home. George left around 11 p.m. and he was walking down under the Adderley Street viaduct. He heard some men shouting at him, trying to see who they were. Saw the men were approaching him. One of them was Thomas Mucklow. Another was some goon named Groom and the third assailant was unidentified. When they caught up to him they they let him have it. They punched him several times there was like you know several guys hit him at least three. He falls to the

ground now they start to kick him with their boots and they start to whip him with those belt buckles. Eventually after taking a lot of damage George somehow manages to get up and run away. A man named Mr. Turner took George in when he showed up bloody on his doorstep banging on his door. George was taken to the hospital suffering from quote, serious bodily contusions. His head was fractured and his scalp cut in two or three places. He needed a trepanning operation, that is a hole was drilled into his head, right, because his brain was swelling and then he spent three weeks recovered in the hospital. Here is the account from the newspaper article dated March 24th, 1890 in the Bermuda Mail

titled, Murderous Outrage at Small Heath, a Man's Skull Fracture. Again, the earliest written evidence of the Peaky Blinders. It seems that Eastwood called between T and 11 o'clock at the Rainbow Public House in Adderley Street and was supplied with a bottle of ginger beer. Shortly afterwards, several men known as the Peaky Blinders Gang, whom Eastwood knew by sight from their living in the same neighborhood as himself, came in. They immediately commenced making offensive remarks about his being a tea totaler and drinking ginger beer. He merely appealed to the landlord, like the pub owner, as to whether or not he was at liberty to call for what he liked when one of the party tripped him up from behind. So he's like, oh, can I just order what I want here?

Now they knock him down to the ground. So he decides to leave, knowing the gang is dangerous. The gang was still nearby. They followed him down Adderley Street to a place where two bridges crossed. By that point, Thomas Moklo shouted, now boys give it give it him hot give it him hot boys. Then it says, then they commenced striking him with their fists and East would try to defend himself. Eventually he was overpowered by a terrible blow from a buckled belt dealt he alleges by a man named Groom. He

fell and whilst on the ground he was kicked about the road and was struck several times about the head with buckled belts. God damn that would hurt. At last Eastwood gained his feet and chased by the mob ran as far as the back entrance to Alcock Street Board School and by scaling the wall crossing the playground and then climbing another wall got into Alcock Street where he took refuge in the house of Mr. Turner. I know I'm a child but now that I've like trained my brain to like look for dick references, it's just, it's uncanny how many show up. All cock. A-L-L-C-O-C-K street. Okay. George was bleeding profusely from his injuries, said. The gang

shouted outside Mr. Turner's house. We'll kill him if we caught him. It was almost midnight before they could get George to the hospital, right? They had to wait for these fuckers to leave. They couldn't actually call him on the phone because those weren't a thing. George was covered in bruises. His skull was badly fractured. He had a scalp wound so deep that doctors could see his bone. They fractured his skull with those belt buckles and all likelihood. All because he didn't drink alcohol.

And I'm guessing, you know, they just didn't like the looks of him. Just a little case of, you think you fucking better than me? With your fucking ginger beer, you fucking wanker! Too good to drink with those regular working folks, professor! News of Eastwood's attacks spread to the London Daily News. In their April 9th paper, they published a letter from a Birmingham resident to a local paper. This person said that Georgia's attackers were part of the small Heath Peaky Blinders. Mucklow sends to nine months hard labor for the crime his accomplices were never caught. It'll be over two years before the Peaky

fucking Blinders show up back in the news. With Henry again, Henry Lightfoot. 19 year old Henry Lightfoot and 18 year old William Snowball Wright charged with burglary and assaulting a police officer and a railway porter on September 11th 1892. When I first read that last sentence, I imagine that the officer and Porter were beaten for turning down and offered to drink some beer. Right? Like the Peaky Blinders really fucking hated it if you wouldn't drink beer around them. You know, the officer said he couldn't because you know, he's on duty, the Porter says his wife will leave him, he won't be able to see his two little boys anymore if he starts drinking again, and the Peaky fucking Blinders just call them

pussies, ask to see their vaginas, and just beat the both of them half to death. Here's what really happened. A police officer spotted Lightfoot and Wright in Borsley Green, an area about two miles from Birmingham city center. He was wanted at the time. Police constable caught William Wright in an outhouse on Glover Street. Wright said, he, meaning Lightfoot, threw and hit salt to police officer on the ribs and I dashed a stone and hit him on the head. Wright said that they did in fact commit the burglaries, but Lightfoot refused to comment. Also, I went to YouTube to try and find out how to pronounce Boasley Green.

And holy shit, that area still looks so rough. Some of the top videos that showed up were a video of some kid getting run over. Random stray dog attacking several people on the sidewalk. Random fucking large, I don't know, German shepherd looking dog roaming about the city attacking people. Street brawl. A road rage incident. A shooting. A bunch of walking tour videos. I clicked on one of the walking tour videos. It seemed harmless. And just could not believe how much graffiti and trash on the street.

I was nervous for the person taking the fucking video. Doing additional research for this episode did not push Birmingham to the top of my dream travel destinations list. Sorry to any Birmingham listeners because I know we have some. Please send in some messages. Point out. Please tell me I'm wrong. September 20th, 1892. Henry Lightfoot, William Wright, 16 year old William Sheridan were taken to court for various charges. Thomas Cleaver, a clothing shop owner, was woken up by a crash at a store window on September 9, 1892. He saw that a store had been broken into, saw the three defendants running away, followed

them down the road, then Wright began throwing stones in. The other two also joined in. Cleaver continued to chase them until they threatened to kill him if he kept following them. How pissed would you be if you caught three dudes breaking into your shop? You follow them in the days before he could easily call the cops, you know, trying to get a description whatever, and they just stop running and start throwing rocks at you. Two days later a police constable sees Lightfoot and Wright in the Hay Mills district.

Officer asks a nearby man named Canning to help him make the arrests. Lightfoot quickly attacks Canning, hits him twice. How pissed would you be if a police officer asked you to help him, you agree, and then just immediately get your ass beat? Officer then pursues Lightfoot and Wright until they reach some houses under construction. Wright hit the officer on the head with a large stone. Peaky fucking blinders! Then run to the railway, are tackled by a railway porter, whom Lightfoot also assaults before they escape again. Next morning, the detective arrests Sheridan who confesses his stealing but says, Right and Lightfoot led me into it.

And then Lightfoot and Right are caught that same day. All of the men they assaulted were severely injured. The railway porter or the police constable had concussions. The porter was left permanently deaf in his left ear. Sheridan pleaded guilty to burglaries. Lightfoot and Right pleaded not guilty. The porter was left permanently deaf in his left ear. This is a rough name. Sheridan pleaded guilty to burglary. Lightfoot and Wright pleaded not guilty. Lightfoot pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding.

Pretty funny way to describe an assault. Wright pled not guilty. Rightfoot and Lightfoot were found not guilty of burglary because of lack of evidence. Sheridan was sentenced to six months. Wright to seven months. And Lightfoot to nine months with hard labor for the assaults. A year later,

September 25th, 1893, William Wright, who is now 19, Henry Lightfoot again, who is now 20, they're arrested again with a 19 year old named John Butler, charged with assaulting a man named William Mitchell and stealing money from him. On September 25th, William Mitchell was playing football, aka soccer, in a field near Byron Road in Small Heath. Wright approached him, said a few choice words, punched him in the face, knocked him down, and then kicked him around for a bit. Lightfoot then ran over, held Mitchell down, while Wright put his hands into Mitchell's pockets, looking for money.

Lightfoot and Butler then both kicked Mitchell some more. Before they walked off, Wright then confessed to this crime after Mitchell ratted him out to the police. And he said that in December of 1892, his mum had given Mitchell, whom she knew from the neighborhood, three pence to buy Wright a dinner while he was in prison. But Mitchell kept that money for himself and didn't say shit to her. Mitchell admitted to that. Said he kept the money because, you know, it was too late to buy food once he made it to the jail.

I actually like this beating, right? William Mitchell sounds like a wheezy little bitch. Should have given the money back to that guy's mom. Good for Wright. Mitchell deserved that ass-whooping. Butler was discharged for lack of evidence. Lightfoot and Wright, though, held on assault charges. Lightfoot, sentenced to a month of hard labor, Wright to two months. I bet Wright's mom didn't give Mitchell any money this time around. October 30th, 1895. Now, two officers are called to kick out a gang of 20 to 30 Peaky Blinders from the Stag and Pheasant pub on the corner of Bromsgrove and

Purshore streets. Outside the pub one of the blinders named Warner assaults the officers when the officers go to arrest him the gang attacks. 28 year old James Cusin kicked Constable Bennett in the stomach. Both Warner and Cusin were arrested. Warner received six months, Cusin six weeks with hard labor. December 3rd, 1895, oh, Henry Lightfoot, oh, Hank, he's back in the news. He just can't stop getting arrested. He becomes one of the first men to actually be called a Peaky Blinder in print specifically. I love what he got in trouble for.

This is maybe my favorite crime of this episode. This time Lightfoot had assaulted several people inside of a pub with a stick including the owner and his wife. A dude just literally brought a stick into the bar and started whacking people. I'm gonna assume he was hammer drunk when he did this. Just going around beating people with a stick feels like a drunk move and this is all he did. Afterwards, he leaves the pub, stick still in hand, and he just walks up the street, whacking anyone he encountered. That's how it's described. Anyone he encountered. This is fantastic. When he eventually crossed paths with a detective whose last name was Tingle, who'd been alerted some idiot hitting people with a stick, guess what he did? Yeah, he fucking hit him with a stick. He quote, Lips the stick above his head and discharged a blow which beat down

Tingle's guard and struck his head. Detective Tingle though, tough guy, then punched Lightfoot in the face, knocked him down. But then one of Lightfoot's Peaky Blind companions who've been following Lightfoot and I'm guessing strongly encouraged him to keep whacking people with sticks with a stick, now punches the officer. After a struggle, the officer must have been one tough son of a bitch, beats them both off and they're taken to a police station. After all of his previous convictions, the court pronounced that Lightfoot was evidently a Peaky Blinder of a dangerous type that would be sent to jail for six months.

I wish we could magically just have video footage of this stick rampage. If you've ever watched The Peaky Blinder Show, you know that for the action scenes, they're heavily stylized. They come across like music videos, right? There'll be some loud, you know, like hard British rock by some band like Royal Blood, just cranking big guitar riffs. And then a lot of slow-mo scenes of violence following some tough words.

You know, they remind me of scenes from like Guy Ritchie movies. I would love to see this scene. Just Hank, Henry walking into a bar with a stick and the owner's like Henry what you do with that stick in here mate? Come on now stop fooling about. Leave the stick outside alright? No one needs to worry about getting tussled about well drinking a pint. Then Henry reacts just way over the top. Fuck you decide to me Richard. You just disrespect me in front of all these fine people telling me to leave my fucking stick outside like a fucking child

Like I'm not a picky fucking blinder And then the bartender's wife just chimes in trying to defuse the situation No, Henry, he didn't mean anything by it No disrespect, Henry We know who you are We don't want no trouble Just if you don't mind, maybe just leave the stick outside Or if you'd like, hand it over to me, I'll put it somewhere safe

You can take it home later I'll hand it over, Maggie I'll put it somewhere safe you can take it home later or hand it over Maggie I'll hand it over right quick everyone here now gonna get a chance to hold my stick I'm punishing the whole lot of you by all of the peaky fucking blinds and there's just this long action montage a lot of slow motion and pivotal moments of Henry just beating the fuck out of everybody around him with this big stick teeth flyingeth flying out of people's mouths, noses getting broken, some dude getting knocked through a window, bartender's wife getting chased around, getting spanked with a stick, and then he just rushes out the door roaring like an animal, chasing anyone he sees, old women, little kids, everyone's getting whacked. I bet Black Young June, or Black Young Jin, excuse me, from last week, from the Moonies, would have loved to be a Peaky Blind.

He would have fucking beat the shit. He'd have his own own stick two of them just going around on a stick rampage a month later january of 1896 peaky blinders get mentioned the news again correspondent to the birmingham mail wrote in spite of all the energy of the birmingham police the present time is a veritable reign of terror owing to the conduct of the professional rough come peaky blinder the following year j July 18, 1897, the Peaky Blinder's gang commit a much more serious crime. They participate in the murder of a police officer, Constable George Snipe. Officer Snipe was patrolling the city center when he and a colleague were called to a disturbance at a pub on Bridge Street West. Snipe arrested 23-year-old

Peaky Blinder William Colerain for lewd language And that is a stupid law lewd language in a pub What dipshit would even complain about that? Man give officers a better shit to do than arrest people for profanity You know what if you're somebody who thinks that it should be illegal to use profanity in public I want you to do some self-reflection. I want to ask yourself a few simple questions Why am I getting so worked up? Over some random word.

Why can't I be mentally stronger? And most importantly, why am I choosing to be such a silly little fucking cunt? When Officer Snipes confronted Coleraine, his friends got into a fight with the officer and at least two other officers who accompanied him. One of the gang members threw a brick at Snipes head, fracturing his skull in two places. God, oh my God, getting a brick thrown at you. Snipes died from these wounds. Next morning, five men were arrested in connection to his murder. Thomas Hodges, 21, Charles Edward, Elvis, 32, William Colerain, 23, Thomas Moran, 24, and James Franklin, 19. On July 18th, coroner's jury returned

a verdict of willful murder against James Franklin, dude who threw the brick. At a meeting of the Birmingham Watch Committee July 27th, 1897, the committee discussed George Snipes murder and the quote outbreak of ruffianism in the town. We have too much ruffianism, don't we? The chief constable agreed with the other members that flogging might be a good punishment to stop the attacks and violence against innocent people in Birmingham. And you know what? I like, I'm in favor of it. I like it. I think we should bring back flogging might be a good punishment to stop the attacks and violence against innocent people in Birmingham. And you know what? I like, I'm in favor of it. I like it.

I think we should bring back flogging now. At least try it out, you know, a couple years. Would that be so bad? It would be so much cheaper than housing and feeding prisoners for relatively minor crimes, right? And also let them get back to work faster. Like what if, you know, if you arrested for burglary, instead of being sent to prison for a year or two years you just got

flogged in public like savagely flogged. Not gonna die, but it's gonna hurt a lot. It's gonna be pretty embarrassing. You know some Saturday afternoon you and a few other guilty parties get marched out to some little event space near the town square. Some little amphitheater with some stadium seating. There's a band playing. Some food vendors. You know you got fucking street corn and hot dogs and shit, people can buy a ticket to watch it and then there's some big dude in fantastic shape with a real strong arm just flogging the shit out of you with a cat of nine tails. Remember that weapon? It's come up in a few sucks. Nice, you know, nine, excuse me, a little leather strands

anchored in a handle each about 12- 18 inches long with knots on the end of them Just for extra cracking They mostly get sold now on BDSM sites, but this is not gonna be pleasure through pain. This is just gonna be pain You know you get tied to some whip and post where your back is exposed You can't move much to wiggle around with the blows and like like like you used to on like pirate ships And then the big guy just fucking tees off on your bare back or maybe better your bare bottom. Maybe it depends on the crime. Depends on what you do. Certain crimes you get back. Other crimes well you can get whipped on your fucking bare bottom. People attendance or place and bets on how many whips it'll take to

draw blood. You know how much you can endure before the first tear streams down your cheek, your piss or your shit yourself. How much money would we save overall if we did that? How reluctant would you be to rob again at the last time you got caught? You were beaten until you shit yourself and passed out from the pain. It took damn near a month to fully heal from your wounds. Wounds you have permanent scars from. Right? And a bunch of people around the neighborhood, well they saw your fucking bare bottom. Yeah, they saw your little fucking kibbles and bits out there bouncing around from the whippin'. We should at least try it for a few years. Find out if it's more effective when it

comes to recidivism rates and overall costs to taxpayers with crime. Anyway, Collerain, Hodges, Elvis, Moran were all charged with assaulting Constable Snipe and Frederick Meade and Collerain received another assault charge for attacking Constable Charles Clayton. Chuckie, the Birmingham Daily Gazette reported that at 10 p.m. July 18th the defendants were seen by Snipe and Meade near Hockley Hill and Bridge Street West. Quote, their behavior was so disorderly that the officers followed them along Bridge Street West. Eventually Colerain used very offensive language and Snipe attempted to take him into custody. He then became very violent

and kicked Snipe severely about the legs. That surprised me. I read that. That was his first go-to move, kicking somebody severely about the legs. Never seen that as someone's go-to move in a fight. The officer threatened to use his staff and on Colerain kicking him again, Snipe struck him on the left shoulder. By this time a crowd had gathered and someone as soon as they saw Colerain strike with the staff threw a brick, which struck snipe on the left side of the head. The deceased officer threw his arms up in the air and fell unconscious against someone in the crowd. Man, brick to the head. The defense didn't comment on the person who threw the brick because a man was

already committed to the assizes in respect of it. Again, again, assizes, a archaic term for some court sessions. Colerain then kicked Snipes on the right side of his head, damn, after he got hit in the head with a brick, even though he's unconscious, and then attacked Meade. Elvis and Hodges jumped in, hit Meade. Meade, I didn't realize Elvis was a British name. Meade blew his whistle for help.

Constable Clayton came to help and was kicked by the three men. A lot of kicking, these guys love to kick. Love to throw rocks and bricks and kick. Moran threw stones at the police officers who were following the three men down the street. Snife briefly woke up in the hospital, said he needed to go back to the crime scene, then lost consciousness again and never woke up.

The defense argued that Snipes death was caused by a blow to the head from the brick, not the kicking to the head afterwards, and none of the defendants threw that brick at him, which I guess is kind of fair. All four men found guilty of their charges, but they were not charged with directly causing Snipes death. Colerain received an 18-month sentence. Hodges, Elvis, Moran all get nine months. And then 19-year-old James Franklin found out he did throw the brick and he's charged

with the willful murder of George Snipes. He pleads not guilty to trial, which which starts December 16th, 1897, while Snipe and Meade were escorting Colerain to jail and were walking at the junction of Wall Street and Bridge Street, quote, a brick thrown with very great violence hit Snipe on the left temple. And he fell to the ground almost into the arms

of a girl named Polly Mullins. Polly Mullins, what a great name for a Peaky Blinders adjacent character. I probably think that because the BBC show does feature a woman named Polly Mullins. What a great name for a Peaky Blinders adjacent character. I probably think that because the BBC show does feature a woman named Polly Gray as a major character. Or did. Polly Mullins testified that James Franklin was the one who threw the brick because she saw him following Snipe and saw that he had a brick in his hand. And more importantly, she also saw him throw the brick. Polly picked up Snipes helmet, ran to the police station. Franklin followed her, demanded that she hand over the helmet to him.

When she refused, he hit her in the face. She ran again. He continued following her, threatened to kill her. He snatched the helmet from her hands, threw it on the ground, then jumped on it, then walked away with the busted up helmet. Poor Polly went to the police station, made a report of what she saw. Franklin was charged with murder the next day, but denied throwing the brick. Several witnesses would testify about seeing Franklin at the scene but Polly was the only one who saw or said she saw him actually throw

the brick. Defense argued that Franklin was not the one who threw the brick and asked the jury to not let this deplorable state of things prejudice their minds against the prisoner. The defense suggested that Polly Mullins misidentified Franklin because she was paying attention to snipe so she wouldn't seen who threw the brick defense also argued that Franklin wouldn't have chased Polly because she could have identified him The defense called on witnesses to prove that the brick was actually thrown by black young gin Taking some street confessions No The defense felt the brick was thrown by cloggy Williams

Whose mission at the time fucking cloggy of course someone named cloggy to the brick. was thrown by cloggy Williams, who was missing at the time. Fucking cloggy! Of course someone named cloggy threw the brick. That's what cloggy do. Cloggy throw bricks. You put cloggy in a room with a goddamn brick, guess what's gonna happen? Ten out of ten times. Yeah, that brick's gonna get thrown. A man named Enoch Arthur Smith took to the witness stand, testified that he saw cloggy

throw the brick. Apologies to any listeners named cloggy. That's a fucking weird name. Three more witnesses testified that Franklin was not the one who threw the brick. Another witness identified cloggy Williams as the killer but said he initially had denied knowing Williams was the killer because Williams' brother threatened to do him in if he told the truth. That does sound like something cloggy's kin would say. Witness James Jones was with Colerain and cloggy's kid would say. Witness James Jones was with Collorain and cloggy on July 18th. He also testified. He said snipe told him to leave the area the night he was killed. Collorain was arrested. The fight broke out. Cloggy picked up a brick said he was going to quote knock out the

policeman's brains with it. He stated that cloggy thought the snipe was another police officer who had previously put him in jail for two months. After cloggy threw the brick Jones told him now you've done something to which cloggy replied he ain't heard much oh classic cloggy he throws a brick bash somebody's head in and then he's like oh he's fine hey he ain't heard much is he yeah he walk it off that's that's how cloggy do cloggy throw a brick cloggy no care who get hit Jones Jones said he saw Cloggy the next day but he hasn't seen him since. A jury now decided that he could not convict James Franklin based on

this evidence. Franklin was discharged and the judge said that the police if they caught Cloggy there would be a good deal for him to answer. But you ain't gonna catch Cloggy! Cloggy run! Cloggy hide! Cloggy brick you if you spot him no 19 year old cloggy Williams was actually eventually found arrested in charge of murder no cloggy throw brick cloggy get caught George cloggy Williams his hearing now takes place March 17th 1898 he's found guilty manslaughter March 18th the next day and sends to life in prison the prosecution presented 21 witnesses who testified that the clog Meister was the killer they argued that cloggy had motive because he thought Snipes was another

police officer right he had beef with. Cloggy's defense attorney blamed Colerain for the murder said Williams wouldn't have announced his intentions to kill the officer before doing so but it didn't matter cloggy in jail cloggy no have more brick to throw now. July 21st 1898 an anonymous workman sends a letter to the Birmingham Daily Mail again referencing the peaky, fulking blinders, saying, "...surely all respectable and law-abiding citizens are sick of the very name of ruffianism in Birmingham and assaults on police. No matter what part of the city one walks, gangs of

peaky blinders are to be seen, who oft times think nothing of grossly insulting passengers by, be it a man, woman, or child. I venture to say that 99 times out of 100, they are not even brought to justice." I get why he sent that in anonymously. How do you put his real name on those remarks? Oh, he's getting bricked. At least he's getting whipped with a bell buckle or beat with a stick. In 1899, Irish police chief Charles Hottenrafter is

contracted to enforce law and order in Birmingham. Put an end to these pakey fucking blinders. Sir Charles Hottenrafter lived from 1860 to August 1930, 1935. He was originally from Ireland. He joined the Royal Irish Constabulary, the Irish police force before incorporation into the UK in 1882 when he was just 22 years old. Seven years later in July of 1899 he applied to succeed Joseph Farndale as Chief Constable of Birmingham. He was the only man who showed up for his interview wearing his uniform, which impressed

the watch committee so much they gave him the position. Sounds like the bar was pretty low when it came to people trying to get this job. What were the other applicants wearing? Right applicant one shows up just in a kilt. Nothing else. Applicant number two walks in with pajamas. Applicant number three comes in wearing nothing but a ball gag and a butt plug. Why ain't anyone taking this right proper serious like? When Raptor joined the force there were 700 officers roughly one officer for every 654 people across 14 police stations.

700 officers, roughly one officer for every 654 people across 14 police stations. The Inspectorate of the Constabulary criticized Birmingham for being short by about 200 officers. In 1901, Rafter convinced the Watch Committee to hire 100 extra officers, with an additional 20 hires over the next six years. By 1935, the ratio changed to 1,587 officers, one for every 632 people across 64 stations. When Rafter came to Birmingham, the police force was extremely corrupt. The blinders routinely paid off the police to look the other way so they could continue with their impressive criminal activity. When Pipe would come telling you about me bopping him on the head with a stick, you

just like couldn't have been me. Because I was with you when that happened, right? Yeah, officer? Here's a shilling for your hard work. During Rafter's time as Chief Constable in 1911, the city of Birmingham expanded to include numerous new suburbs. And the new area became known as Greater Birmingham. The population increased from 523,000 to 840,000. Putting more strain on the police force.

Rafter decided to form a branch of mounted officers. He had a lot more police stations built. He was revolutionary for his time. He made reforms, modernization efforts, he increased benefits for officers like housing and education. Also hired so-called police matrons to look after juvenile and female prisoners. However, under his watch the violence and often nonsensical petty crimes of the Peaky Blinders would continue. July 23rd, 1901 the Peaky Blinders assault Constable Charles Philip Gunter. Officer Gunter had some brick bats thrown at him. Remember brick bats from the Irish mob suck? Episode 343?

Absolutely terrifying. Sometimes the term is used to describe either a piece of brick or a whole brick that you throw. So just, you know, synonymous for a regular of brick or a whole brick that you throw. So just you know synonymous for a regular old brick. Other times it's a piece of brick that you put into a sock or a handkerchief and then you swing it around like some primitive form of a one-handed medieval flail. That metal often you know a spiked ball at the end of the chain that connects to a wooden handle you swing around you know and just bash people with. That thing. There's some of these brick-related weapons that scare me more than knives or even guns. I

would really rather not be bashed with a brick. My son Kyle and I were actually talking just a few hours ago. Like would you rather be hit with a brick or sliced with a razor like slash with a knife? And he actually picked a brick even though it would do more damage and more likely kill him he said because a knife like a razor is just scarier. like all the bleeding is scarier Than the bashing you would give them. They both really suck. I as horrible as it would be to come by razor I might prefer that to being smashed by brick Officer Gunter he had his skull fractured by more than one brick blows

He was left unconscious laying in the street He was taken to the hospital had to undergo a trepanning operation, just like poor bastard George Eastwood did back in 1890. That guy who got kicked and whipped with belt buckles had a skull fracture for ordering a ginger beer to pub. On August 3rd the police arrested three men, 23 year old Joseph Addy, 19 year old George Fowles, and 33 year old George Galligan. All pled not guilty. Addy and Fowles were identified as being present when Gunter was attacked. Galligan discharged and re-arrested later.

On the night of July 22nd, Gunter was on duty. He was working with his partner constable, Healy, that night. They separated at 1150 p.m., just before midnight. Gunter went to the entry of Galligan's home that night because he heard some loud noises. Galligan had met with Addy and Fowls at a public house nearby. They brought beer, or bought beer, went to Galligan's house to drink some more. Galligan bumped into Officer Gunter at the entry and then ran away. Gunter chased after him, but Galligan got away. Galligan returned a few minutes later, though, without his coat. That same night, Officer Gunter

also entered the Bruce family home because he heard loud screaming there. What the fuck's going on around here? Addy and Fowls are are inside with five other people. Gunter attempted to calm things down. Addie and Fowl, others leave, but they then follow Gunter when he leaves. Gunter returns to the Bruce house 10-50 minutes later, bleeding from the head. Witness Emma Butler, who's at the house, testified that Gunter left, men followed, and that she then saw bricks being thrown at Gunter but didn't see who threw them. I can't believe it took me this long to think of this question but where the fuck are all these bricks coming from? Like how are these guys always able to get a hold of

bricks at a moment's notice? Was there just a shitload of random bricks laying all about the streets of Birmingham back at this time? Was there little stacks of bricks at the corner of each intersection, you know? Just you know little cloggies bricks. Or do these guys just walk around with a statue full of bricks? It's so odd. When I'm out and about here in Coeur d'Alene, I've never attempted to throw any bricks. In part, because I never see any bricks laying around. A witness named Thomas Smallbone, who worked as a watchman at Perry & Co.'s Penn factory at Lancaster Street,

testified that on the night of the attack on Gunter, the windows of a factory across the street were broken And he heard a noise. What do you bet? That window was busted out with brick Small bones said he went to the window saw Gunter at he fouls and Galligan fighting It was reported in the paper quote He watched the row saw the men in the act of throwing and heard something crash against the boards of the collared opposite Prior to that small bone had seen a man making brick ends. What the fuck is a brick end? Why are bricks such a prominent part of this story? Also, Smallbone, that's an unfortunate last name. October 1st, the defendants appeared in court. A surgeon testified

that Gunter was still in critical condition and, quote, unlikely to ever be quite right in his mind again. Quote from the newspaper. Unlikely to you ever be quite right in his mind again. I wonder if any doctors still speak like that. What do you think doc? What am I dealing with? I think you're unlikely to be quite right in the mind ever again. Sadly 25 year old Constable Gunter did die October 26, 1901 at the hospital from his wounds. In November of that year a man named John Davis was charged with his murder. Another guy. So many hooligans running around throwing bricks back then. December 14th, 1901, Addie Files as Davis fellow found guilty of manslaughter, all sentenced to

15 years in prison. The following year, we reconnect with Mr. Lightfoot. Old Henry hits with sticks. August 26th, 1902, Henry Lightfootfoot now 31 years old. Joseph Henry Graham, 24. Edward Horn, 25. Henry Butterworth, 22. They burglarize a grocery and wine and spirit store. They steal eight bottles of liquor. Harry Horley, the store owner, heard a loud crash at 1130 p.m. August 26. He saw four men walking away carrying alcohol. A few hours later, police officer heard loud noises, saw four men walking down the canal at Hay Mills. One of the men shouted at him, put that light out, we'll put yours out. You come down here, we'll throw you in the cut. Okay. Officer approached anyway, one of the men then hit him on the helmet

with the bottle. That officer's fucking lucky. This was the one time in history a Peaky Blinder couldn't quickly find a brick. Another police officer responded to a distress whistle. Graham and Horn were arrested. Butterworth and Lightfoot then took off through a hedge at the bottom of the embankment. Butterworth was quickly arrested, then fought with the police constable. Lightwood got away, probably grabbed a stick, ran off somewhere and hid with it. Graham and Horne escaped on their way to being taken to the police station. They jumped into the canal, swam across, but then another constable arrested them on the other side. What an emotional rollercoaster. That would suck.

Horn looks back as he swims across the canal thinking he's made it. By order of the Peaky fucking blinders, we declare ourselves free men. But then he looks ahead, sees another cop who's waiting for him. Oh hell. Lightfoot also soon arrested. He was found passed out drunk. This guy's a fucking mess He was found passed out drunk hugging a bottle of sherry an officer put handcuffs on him while he was still passed out He didn't seem too upset about being caught when he came to his first words were hello joe clicked again Guessing clicked was old burmium slang for getting arrested getting handcuffs put on you Uh lightfoot and the others denied committing the robbery all four are indicted for breaking and entering and theft Guessing clicked was old Birmingham slang for getting arrested, getting handcuffs put on you. Lightfoot and the others deny committing the robbery. All four are indicted for breaking entering and theft. All are found guilty. Lightfoot is sentenced to nine months hard labor now and

three years supervision. Graham and Horn receive six months each. Butterworth given 12 months. Lightfoot will be arrested at least one more time. One more time we'll make the papers. Five years later, 1907, such a such a sad crime. He was caught stealing 12 scrubbing brushes. Oh my god, his fucking life is in tatters. On the afternoon of October 11th, 1904, Ralph Euster leaves his bike outside a Birmingham factory for about four minutes. When he comes back out, his bike is gone. He then sees a man turning down another street with his bike. Runs after the thief but can't catch him. Probably because the guy's, you know, on a bike now. He's on foot. Next day, October 12th, detectives saw a Peaky Blinder, criminal mastermind, Harry Fowles, old Hank. We met him before in the timeline. Trying to get rid of this bike. Trying to sell it.

Fowles is arrested shortly after. Ernest Hayes also arrested. Both plead guilty to bike theft. Fowles blamed Haynes for the theft. Oh, sorry. Haynes, not Hayes. Haynes was sentenced to two months and Fowls to one month. A week later, peaky fucking blinder Thomas Gilbert charged on October 18th, 1904 with obtaining various sums of money by false representations. So he's running scams. Alice Robbins reported that her husband was a laborer for the corporation and she said that Gilbert came to their house August 29th. Alice didn't know him but Gilbert said he knew her husband. He mentioned he was a head barman till a few months ago when his foot got

poisoned and he said Alice's husband it was kind of gave him a shilling and I think by poisoned he's referring to a maybe an infection. I don't know what else that would mean. Gilbert returned the next day said he had now obtained a situation with the firm of Aston Brewers. Alice's husband again out of the house and somehow he talks her into loaning him 10 shillings So he can buy an overcoat and a suit for his new job. But then a representative of the Brewers when she contacts him says, No, we don't know these guys. He's never been hired. Gilbert pleads guilty. He's sentenced to three months of hard labor for taking advantage of poor Alice. Trying to help a stranger. Guilt trips her. He's a liar. She was not the first person to be scammed by this Peaky Blinder.

A detective told the court that in 1903 Gilbert had a great run amongst poor people, to whom he spun a similar yarn to the one which was successful in Robin's case. He occasionally asked for subscriptions towards a cork leg instead of a fake leg like he was about to have his leg removed because of his poisoned foot and he needed a new leg. He had caught scamming before all this as well and received one month's sentence. Alice Robbins testified that he had stolen over two pounds from her and her husband in cash and over three pounds worth of food. Alice sounds pretty gullible.

June 7th 1906 the Birmingham Gazette and Express report on some serious Aston assaults. Aston being an area of inner Birmingham. Stephen McNichol another Peaky Blinder criminal mastermind is charged with unlawful wounding. McNichol approached Joseph Dabbs who was standing on a bridge. He was randomly hit him on the head with some weapon. She described as some weapon. Why do you bet it was a brick? Dabbs was injured, had to go to the hospital, but was not fatally wounded. McNichol when asked why he attacked Dabbs argued the Dabbs sneered at him. Quote, sneered at me. And then said he also hit him in the jaw which caused him to fall down and hit his head on the pavement. He was just defending himself. The court thought he was full of shit. They disagreed.

He was fined 20 shillings and also had to pay his court costs. And now let's move out of this timeline. Yes, that's pretty much all of the old press we have on these Peaky Blinders. At least this stuff we could find. I'll now cover the end of the Peaky Blinders. We don't have a lot of exact dates for their demise. So just more of a summary really. So no timeline is necessary.

Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. By the 1910s, leading up to World War I, the Peaky Blinders are overpowered by a new rival, Billy Kimber's Birmingham Boys. Billy being a character in the BBC show based on the real historical figure of the same name. When the Blinders tried to move into the racecourses, the Birmingham Boys responded with violence.

Too much violence for the Peaky Blinders to handle. Several of the Peaky Blinders moved from the inner city of Birmingham, the countryside apparently, truly ran out of town. The Birmingham Boys were the Peaky Blinders' biggest rival in the early 1900s. The gang, also known as the Brummagem Boys, or the Brum Boys. It's the Brum Boys, is it? The Birmingham Boys became much bigger, far more organized than the Peaky Blinders ever were. They would go on to expand their territory thanks to new methods of transportation. They were able to move beyond their neighborhoods and into London thanks to

a new railway connecting Birmingham and London. Gang took advantage of that to get to the London race courses. Race courses were the only place for legal gambling in the area after the passage of the Gaming Act of 1845 and were highly coveted by gangsters. Bookmakers attracted gangs seeking to take whatever money they were making mugging folks or shaking businesses down in their neighborhoods and turn that money into a lot more money. Also there was a different way they could make money though by offering protection. Bookmaking was an unregulated business at the time making it easy to turn it into an illegal business. With the increase of

train routes all classes could attend the horse races across the country loads of people are handing over loads of cash to bookmakers who then have to hire bodyguards to protect them from having some asshole, some peaky fucking blinder, bash them in the head with a brick and taking their loads of money. Several Birmingham and London gangs seized on this opportunity and offered protection to bookmakers for a cut of their profits of course. William Billy Kimber, born in 1882 in the Aston area of Birmingham. Billy was both a brass caster and a gang leader. Again, I love that. Love that these gangsters are holding down full-time straight jobs. Gonna have to wait on the robbery. Gotta wait for my brass caster job to be over for the day. Historian Carl Chin described

Billy Kimber as a very intelligent man with a fighting ability, a magnetic personality, and a shrewd awareness of the importance of an alliance with London. Kimber controlled the racecourses in the Midlands and North England by aligning with gangs in the importance of an alliance with London. Kimber controlled the race courses in the Midlands and North England by aligning with gangs in the towns of Utoxeter and Leeds. For a few years, he may have actually been the biggest crime boss in the UK. Billy's gang was in power from the 1910s all the way to the 1930s when he lost control to the Sabini crime family who were some mafiosos. The real Peaky Blinders, unlike their BBC versions, never went up against the mob. Definitely never defeated mobsters.

They never defeated Billy Kimber in real life. Before getting pushed out by the mob, Billy set up a second base in Islington, North London, to focus on the racetracks in the biggest city in the country. There Kimber formed alliances with the Hoxton Gang and the Elephant and Castle Mob. The McDonald Brothers, oh man not this McDonald but I wish there were. Better than nothing, and nothing at all. I would love if Michael McDonald was also a gangster. I could live somewhere back in the logo. Don't make me have to take a stick and bash you in the head with a brick.

McDonald Brothers. That didn't make any sense, I know. Charles Wag McDonald and Wal McDonald. W-A-L. With the leaders of the Elephant and Castle Mob, the London Gang, that originated in the early 1900s. The McDonald Brothers would ally with Billy Kimber in their losing fight against the Sabini Gang. Charles Darby Sabini, birth name Ottavio Hanley was born on July 11th, 1888, died October 4th, 1950. He was an Italian English and English mob boss. Sabini was born in London's

Little Italy. His biological father is unknown because he was born on a wedlock. It was either Charles Hanley, a laborer, or Ottavio Sabini, Maserati, Bugatti, Massalera, Giovanni, Rossacci, Mario Luigi, Ciabella, Antonio Banderas. Masterclass! Yeah, I'm still 100% fluent in Italian. Darby's possible dad, probable dad, was Ottavio Sabini, an Italian immigrant. His mother was either Eliza Hanley or Elizabeth Eliza and she married Ottavio Sabini in 1889, the year after Darby was born, and Ottavio did consider Darby to be his son. In 1920, Sabini got into a bar fight, the younger Sabini, at the Griffin Public House, where he knocked out an enforcer of a South London gang because the man insulted an Italian barmaid. And now word got around that Sabini was a tough guy.

Oh, he was a tough guy. A good, good proud Italian. I don't know why I did that. Sabini ended up getting into the gambling business, running the race courses for many years, organizing protection rackets for bookmakers. His gang was also involved in extortion theft and running various nightclubs. The Sabini gang at their height had an estimated 100 members, as well as some additional hired soldiers from Sicily.

Sabini had police, judges, and politicians on his payroll. And for years, Sabini had no competition in South London until Billy Kimber attempted to expand into his territory. He wanted that racetrack, bookie protection racket cash. Sabini controlled the best pitches at the races and had his men guarding the bookkeepers. All the money Sabini was making got the attention of other gangs like the Birmingham Boys. A gang war starts up between the Birmingham Boys and the Sabini crime family. When Kimber first broke into the London area race courses, he started preying on some Jewish bookkeepers

from the East End. And then those bookkeepers turned to underworld boss Edward Emanuel for help and Emanuel recruited the Sabini gang for protection. In March 1921 some of the Birmingham boys ambushed the Sabini gang at Greenford Park Trotting Track in Greenford London. Following this attack, March 27th 1921, Billy Kimber met Sabini at his apartment in King's Cross in London. Allegedly he wanted to establish a truce but one of Sabini's men Alfie Solomon shot him. Solomon would later be acquitted for the attempted murder of Kimber after witnesses refused to testify against him. Violence escalated between the gangs following their assassination attempt and soon 23 Birmingham boys would be arrested after the infamous Epsom

Road battle June 2, 1921. The Birmingham boys mistakenly believed that a group of bookmakers from Leeds who arrived in a crossly tender type car at Yule a suburban area of Epson a town of the borough of Epson and Yule Surrey on Coronation Cup Day were actually the speeding gang the cross he was hit by a taxi roughly 60 men that attacked the passengers with fucking hatchets hammers and bricks goddamn that's a nightmare there's no good choice you want to be to be hit with a hatchet, a hammer, or a brick? There's no good answer. And again, these were not Sabini gang members. The gang used taxis, a blue motor coach, to follow the victims that somehow made it out of the initial hits

with these weapons and escaped the scene. Wag McDonald fled to Canada after the Epsom Road battle of 1921. He fucking doesn't want to get hit with a hatchet or a hammer or brick. Afterwards, he would move to Los Angeles, end up in Hollywood, become the bodyguard of Charlie Chaplin, and also Jack Dragna, LA's mafia boss. His stories of working for the mafia recounted from his diaries in the book Elephant Boys, Tales of London and Los Angeles Underworlds, written by his nephew Brian McDonald. In August of 1921, Walter Bursford becomes the first president of the Racecourse Bookmakers and Backers Protection Association. This association was set up because bookmakers were forced to pay gangs for protection. The association actually turned to the

Sabini gang for protection. Pretty funny. The VP of the association was said to be a criminal known as the Jewish Al Capone. In 1921 there was a series of razor attacks and shootings after Sabini appointed some Sicilian mafia members to fight on his side. Razor attacks. Oh man that does not sound fun at all. 1925 the UK Home Secretary ordered that something had to be done about all this violence on the racetracks. Chief Inspector Frederick Nutty Sharp and his flying squad then began to target the racecourses. There was only about a dozen detectives on the squad and they were severely outnumbered. Walter, aka Wall, McDonald took over after his brother left for America. Wall

and his men actually defeated the Sabines in the so-called Battle at Ham Yard near Piccadilly in 1927, but would not win the war against them. 1927, Bert McDonald and Billy Kimber fled to America after they fired shots through the Griffin, a drinking club frequented by the Sabines and were worried about retaliation. In the late 1920s, with so much police attention now on the race courses,

the gangs started to expand their businesses into nightclubs and casinos. Because Biller Kimber was gone and their new business opportunity was limited due to new legal restrictions, the Birmingham boys fall out of power. Fighting between the gangs, though, will last until the 1930s when the racecourses had increased regulations. Wal McDonald led the gang until his brother returned from the U.S. after murdering the

person who killed her older brother, Burt, during gang wars involving the Dragnas Los Angeles gang in September of 1929. Billy Kimber came back to London after he murdered a man in Phoenix, Arizona, over a gambling debt. 1929, the jockey club and the Bookmakers Protection Association took action to prevent Sabini from controlling the best pitches at the race courses. Police started heavily looking into its illegal race course operations and Sabini now shifted his focus to protection rackets at Greyhound races and clubs in the West End. Sabini kept his power mostly due to the fact that he had allied with Jewish bookmakers during an especially anti-Semitic time

and they were very loyal to him. Yeah if you're a fan of the Peaky Blinders BBC show you can see how the show drew from a lot of real criminal history in England right they just set the show a few decades later after World War I instead of before it, when there was more organized crime and there were more mobsters, there were Jewish gangsters like Alfie Solomon, played impeccably by Tom Hardy,

but the real Peaky Blinders just were not around for that era. Sabini was arrested eventually at the Hove Greyhound Stadium, April of 1940, for being an enemy alien, despite being born in London, not even being able to speak Italian. He was released 1941 and then arrested again for receiving stolen goods and served three years in prison. Then he lost his power to London gang leader Alf White settled in Hove Sussex and worked as a bookmaker after that.

Wag and Wall MacDonald both died in October of 1940 same month actually. October of 1940 former same month actually. October of 1940, former Peaky, Fulcrum Blinder Billy Kimber becomes president of the Devin and Cornwall Bookmakers Association. And then he'll die five years later at the age of 63 in 1945 after a long period of illness at the Mount Stewart nursing home in Torquay, beautiful, beautiful seaside town in Devin, southwest England. And then 62 year old Sabini dies October 4th, 1950 at his home in Brighton.

And that's the end of an era. And what about all the other Peaky Blinder boys? What happened to them? Well, we don't know. Because outside of Billy Kimber, none of them became infamous enough to keep showing up in the historical record. However, we do have an idea of how they faded into obscurity. According to Carl Chin, again that preeminent Peaky Blinder historian, there were social

changes which happened organically. Football became a participatory sport as well as a spectator sport. Lots of 13, 14 and 15 year old lads started to play in their dinner hour. Another new sport that was important was boxing and the emergence of clubs. The Football League, FA Cup and boxing introduced sports to the lower classes more formally. There was an increase in boys and girls clubs as well being built. There was also the cinema, which took up young people's free time and money. In the late 19th century, parks were finally built in the poorest urban areas of places like Birmingham.

For example, in 1893, the Park Street burial ground in Birmingham was turned into a quote health resort for local children. Increased access to education, harsher sentencing policies also decreased the power of gangs in Birmingham. Carl Chin provided statistics for Birmingham mail for the yeah for the Birmingham mail on crime rates for the late 19th to early 20th century. In his opinion, these stats show the rise and fall of Birmingham gangs like the Peaky Blinders. In 1867, there were 400 police officers and 465 assaults on constables when the population was 325,000. In 1873, police numbers were up to 450 assaults. I'm sorry, there was 450 police

officers and they faced 473 assaults, when the population was 350,000 strong. The number of assaults in 1878 was 478. There were 279 more in 1883 as a result of a more gentle police approach and fewer open spaces where gangs could congregate. 1899, there were 557 convictions for assaults on the police at a time when there were 685 officers in a city of 500,000 people. And in 1919, there were just 134 convictions against 1,341 officers in a city that had grown rapidly to a population of 900,000 people. And then finally, for what numbers

he provided in 1934, only 96 convictions in a population of a million. So the officers are being beat up much, much less. Yeah, Birmingham changed. The city and various philanthropists invested more in building city parks, establishing various sports leagues, youth clubs. They gave the youth of Birmingham more to do, more to feel good about. It's a good lesson that we can apply today, just continually. In America, elsewhere, where crime rates are high for young people. Want to keep more kids from committing violent crime

and ending up dead or in prison? Well, give them hope, invest in them. Give them something to feel good about. Let them star in a sports league. Let them be the man there, as opposed to having to fight for the title of the toughest, baddest motherfucker on the block. Let them throw footballs and baseballs instead of bricks.

Let them swing rackets on a pickleball court instead of a stick in a pub. Although that is pretty funny. Give them a boys and girls club where they can spend time in the weight room or take classes or help get into college with some kind of mentor as opposed to battling other kids in some fucking cemetery that's supposed to be a park. Peaky Blinders were not some cool stylish gang. They were largely violent kids and young men who desperately wanted to feel good about something and dressing up in dapper suits and beating motherfuckers with bricks made them feel cool and tough when they didn't have a lot of other methods and other ways to feel cool and tough.

The gangs of Birmingham like the Peaky Blinders were a direct result of severe poverty that many experienced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There just wasn't a lot to be had in the industrial slums of Birmingham. And by the 1870s, so-called slogging gangs formed in response to that. Gangs of young people getting together to fight, steal, rob, assault. These sloggers fought each other for control of territory in the city as their criminalism evolved. The gang version of kind of king of the mountain, who's the baddest, who's the best, who controls's the best who controls their neighborhood? Who controls the most neighborhoods?

From these sloggers soon emerged a new type of gangster the Peaky Blinder Peaky Blinders They did the same shit as the sloggers before them just dressed differently a little more stylishly Which a century later would make for a great look on TV But they didn't have razor blades in their caps Instead they use their boots belt buckles to beat victims and rivals alike. A lot of bricks being thrown, especially cloggy. Fucking cloggy. That's what cloggy do. Cloggy throw bricks. The Peaky Blinders first mentioned in the press by name March 24th, 1890, when poor George Eastwood, violently assaulted for having a soda at a bar. Various members of the Peaky Blinders, Henry Lightfoot, Thomas Mucklow, Harry Fowles,

Ernest Haynes, George Williams, others would make headlines for assault, theft, and sadly the murders of some police constables over the following two decades. And then the Peaky Blinders just faded away, which is good, right? They sounded like some real assholes. Carl Chin writes, The show is compelling and powerful and has been brilliant for Birmingham, but there's also a need to discuss the reality behind it. They were not glamorous or honorable.

They were horrible men. Yeah, they really were, Carl. They were well-dressed, brick-throwing, stick-swinging, women-beaten, foul-mouthed cunts. Time now for our takeaways. Time shock, top five takeaways. Number oneuck, Top 5 Takeaways. Number one, the Peaky Blinders. First mentioned in the Birmingham Daily Mail for the assault of George Eastwood,

who encountered them at a bar in Birmingham. George left the bar, he was followed, violently assaulted, skull fractured by some belt buckles, spent three weeks in the hospital. Only Thomas Mucklow was arrested for this murderous assault and he was sentenced to

nine months in prison. Number two, the Peaky Blinders had a signature style that distinguished them from other Birmingham slogging gangs. They dressed like the wealthy did in overcoats, peaked caps, bell-bottom trousers, boots, and silk scarves around their necks. But despite popular belief, there was no razor blades sewn into their caps to slash unsuspecting victims. Number three, the Peaky Blinders, born out of the slogging gangs of the 1870s. Groups of violent young people in the slums of Birmingham joined one another for fighting,

assault, robbery, theft, and rioting. Sluggers would work odd jobs by day, or full-time jobs at various factories and plants in the industrial rapidly growing city, and then gathered together after work or on their days off to commit some mayhem. Number four Billy Kimber was once a Peaky Blinder but then formed his own gang defeated the Peaky Blinders and traveled to London where became one of the most powerful organized crime leaders in the country. He moved into the London race courses forced bookkeepers to buy his protection this led to conflicts with the Sabini gang who were doing the same

shit. Two gangs and their allies engaged in bloody battles and shootings for a decade until increasing policing and regulations shut down their business operations. And number five, new information historian Carl Chin's great grandfather was a Peaky Blinder. Chin has been researching the Birmingham gang since the 1980s. He claims to have over 40,000 letters from people who have shared personal stories about the street gangs Many of those letters written during the era of the Peaky Blinders by people who are either members or had run-ins with members Chin has said my dad was president of the Birmingham Bookmakers Protection Association and he put me in touch with a load of old bookies Through them. I was put in touch with the younger brother of the real Alfie Solomons who I interviewed in 1986 younger brother of the real Alfie Solomons who I interviewed in 1986. They also put me in touch with Dave Langham whose father was George Langham real

name Angelo Giancali one of the men in Sabini's gang. So in the 1980s I was already writing about the race course war that erupted in 1921 between Sabini and Solomons on one side and the Birmingham gang led by the real Billy Kimber. Chin's great grandfather was Edward Derrick. Carl Chin described Edward Derrick as a man who brutally beats his wife Ada regularly. He's a horrible, nasty wife-beating thug. He's my great grandfather.

Edward Derrick came from a troubled family. Edward's grandfather was constantly in and out of jail. His grandma also convicted of theft. His dad fined for assaulting a police officer. Edward's older brother John also charged with assaulting a police officer. Edward Derrick was born in 1879. By the time he was a teen, he was well on his way to earning a lengthy criminal record. In 1893, he was convicted of vagrancy.

1894, spent seven days in prison for stealing food. Few weeks later, sentenced to four months hard labor for burglary. These are all like crimes of poverty, it seems like most of them. 1897, received a five-month sentence with two years supervision for stealing a bike. 1898, sentenced to 12 months for breaking into a counting house. 1899, assaulted a police officer. 1900, arrested for public drunkenness. 1901, under the alias Frederick Pitt, sentenced to three years for bodily harm.

1906, received two months' sentence for stealing a basket carriage. 1907, Edward Derrick meets Ada Weldon, and he will be the worst thing that ever happened to her. Edward was extremely violent and abusive. He would come home drunk often. Ada and her daughter, Maisie, would often sleep in the communal wash house

or out in their yard or at a neighbor's house to hide from him. Ada divorced him in 1922. Since 1913, Edward had failed to provide food and clothing for his family. Derek went on to become an illegal bookmaker in the 1920s and the crime didn't stop with Edward Derek. Carl's relatives, Alf and Wal Chin owned an illegal betting shop called Turf Accountants. They had a phone number posted outside to help him look legitimate. In May of 1961, they became a legal betting shop, and then Carl Chin himself ran that shop from 1978 to 1984, until his family sold the business, and then he dedicated much of

his life to historical, Peaky Blinder-focused research. And I thank him for that decision, because without him, this episode would not have been possible. Time Suck Top 5 Takeaways The real Peaky Forkin' Blinders have been sucked. Sorry if I just ruined the show for you. They were not actually that cool. It's a pretty funny crime story though. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help in making Time Suck such as Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins, running operations around here, Logan Keith, recording this episode designing merch for the store at BadMagicProductions.com. Thank you to Olivia Lee for the initial research

today. Also, thanks to the all-seeing eyes moderating the Cult of the Curious private Facebook page, the Mod Squad making sure Discord keeps running smooth, and everyone over on the Time Suck subreddit and BadMagic subreddit. And now let us dig into this week's Time Sucker Updates. Oh, I'm going to start off with a real entertaining one. Updates. Get your Time Sucker Updates. First up, holy shit, Richard Bird. Dick Bird. Dick Turd. The gift that just keeps on giving. True crime lover, Eric Lawrence, shared a message with me a few hours before Logan let me know what a bunch of people in the Culturally Curious Facebook group

were fired up about. He writes in with the subject line of holy fucking shite comments. You fucking got Morgan, you bastard. So I'm welding this morning, listening to my favorite pods, Time Suck being my fave, and one of my other faves, Human Monsters, is reporting on who of all killers? Richard fucking Bird. LOL

you got the internet Dan. Love you man from Eric and Golda in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada. Eric thank you for the message. Thank you Golda. And thanks to everyone else who alerted us. Yeah this is wild. So on Wednesday, May 22nd, the Human Monsters podcast, which I was not familiar with, released an episode called Double Trouble Part 11, like Roman numeral 11, if you want to look it up. And at 30 minutes and 33 seconds in, the host Morgan Rector starts talking about Richard Byrd as if he is a totally real serial killer. At various points, he just is straight up reading off the script I wrote for that episode. And I've heard that he uses a researcher and clearly he is not checking. They were, I don't know if he's using this researcher anymore.

They may have gotten fired. If they're working for me, yeah, they would be fired for that. For anyone wondering, I'm not mad that he plagiarized me. You start just presenting other people's work as your own and you'll eventually get caught with the internet today and the situation I think will just work itself out. And I'm hesitant to go after people like that because I myself kind of just talked to Lindsey about this other night. I've had people be like, oh hey man funny bit you stole that from so-and-so. So many times they're talking

about somebody else doing a bit that came out after my bit. It's like a lot of people who make these accusations just don't think it through. Don't really do their research. In this situation though, yeah, he absolutely did steal from me. Clearly. If I'm him, if I'm Morgan, I'm worried about my credibility now. Right? I'm thinking like, oh fuck, what else have I gotten way wrong? And what he did illustrates why I still spend so many hours poring over every script our research team hands into me before ever sharing it with you. I fact-check them always. I do additional research. I don't always get it right. I'm human. But I do think probably 99% of the

time I get it right because I put in that work every week. You know? I'm not gonna say who did it but a few years ago someone did hand me a script full of so many errors. It was because their sources were clickbait articles and they were almost fired that day for that and then it never happened again right and if you and I have notes for the episode you know we pride ourselves on accuracy and transparency you ever want to see the notes for any given episode just email us at Bojangles at time suck podcast comm we used to put on the time suck app I don't know if that for that app might not be in the store anymore we just yeah it just wasn't worth all the work it took to kind

of keep the app going so we're not using that anymore But we do still have notes, you know, the pdfs of notes for every single episode And then they're written like a research paper You know, uh most episodes you would be able to see are pulled from literally dozens of sources Okay, like for this one today this one today was a challenge To kind of give a cohesive narrative to because no single source provided very much information at all about the Peaky Blinders. ThankGodnewspapers.com exists. This huge database you can have a membership to where you can pull up articles from newspapers all around the

world. There is key searches done. Oh, it's without it probably, I don't know, a fifth of our episodes we just wouldn't be able to do. So you can go to these like, you know, articles from like the late 1800s and actually see what was written. And that's what Olivia did. Probably like, I don't know, 15, 20 different, you know, old newspaper articles that she pulled from, at least 15, I would guess. And then a whole bunch of just like random sources and then all compiled together and then, you know, verified and you know, watching YouTube video documentaries to understand more of the context maybe pull out more information and then you

know you put together like a cohesive hopefully hopefully compelling narrative and we do that every week because I care a lot about consistently getting it right right it's what I do it's also just a point of pride. You know? And yeah. I don't want something to happen like what happened to this podcast as Human Monsters. And that being said, it does make me so happy that it did happen. And I truly hope that other podcasts, and ideally also YouTubers, other content creators, also plagiarize Richard Byrd. And I just based on watching a lot of other people's stuff, it based on watching a lot of other

people's stuff, it does seem like a lot of them just like quickly grab whatever is easy and do use each other and just like don't verify and just like yep I'm just gonna say the same thing this person said. So I hope that it happens with Richard Byrd because the more it happens, the more the internet will present it as if it's real information. There's gonna be kids doing fucking book reports about Richard Byrd. I hope that eventually somebody like a little get-together comes up to me and he's like, hey have you ever heard of Richard Bird? You should do an episode about him. That'd be so fucking great.

Yeah and this just you know this happening just makes me want to beat the drum more preaching about you know doing your own research about whatever you're trying to find out about on the web, whatever you're trying to learn about. With the rise of AI and more people leaning on AI and AI not being able to decipher good from bad sources, there's going to be a lot more shitty information on the web going forward and people are going to have to work a lot harder than ever before to really look for legitimate sources. And don't trust this fucking bullshit about like universities and you know basically all of mainstream media being incorrect. There's a lot of good

journalism being done by mainstream media. You know it's not a popular thing to say right now because fucking wackadoodles are ideal fans because they don't care about truth and they just love just hearing this you know narrative of like you know the mainstream media is fucking out to get you out there's a bunch of bullshit no there's a lot of good journalists who went to school for that who have degrees who take it very seriously do they always get stories right do they have bias yes sometimes they do have bias so they don't always get stories right do they get stories right more often than some random fuckhead on some weird

4chan site posting both yes they get it right more than that. And you know, and universities, there are their databases and there's you know just like people who write well-reviewed books, books that are reviewed by you know the Washington Post and the Times. They're not all putting out disinformation. I think they're way more credible than just bullshit on like you know YouTube. So yeah, you gotta do your homework if you want to try and get it right. Now another short message from serial killing tracking meat sack Patrick North, who writes in with the subject line of Robert picked an update. Just an update you've probably already seen, followed by this link to an AP News article.

That's actually another good source, apnews.com. Canadian serial killer Robert picked and assaulted. And then signed off a Cocoa Corrector. Good reference to the coconut called Patrick. Patrick, thank you. Yeah, we got a few heads up about old... Bad Willy! Bad Willy! How about a houseboat coming from Bad Willy? Yes, serial killer Robert Picton. That fucking filthy son of a bitch. From episode 237, the pig farmer killer, Canada's filthy Robert Picton, never come across a dirtier killer, literally dirty, has been beaten and imprisoned within an inch of his life. The 74

year olds on life support currently, as I record this, is also in a medically induced coma after being brutally attacked by another unnamed 51 year old inmate. The sister of one of Picton's victims told CBC News in Canada that she felt relieved and happy when she heard that the serial killer had been attacked. Tammy Lynn Papen, sister of Georgina Papen, said on the Tuesday of the week of the attack, I said, good for him, he deserved it. I don't wish harm on anybody, but karma, you know? Yeah, no, he fucking did deserve it. That filthy sociopath, he claimed to have killed 49 women, one shy of his quote, goal of 50. Gave me a real piece of shit. Is a real piece of shit. He was charged with 26 murders, convicted

of six, that there was the most evidence for in 2007. So that was some good news. And now one more from Ty Olson. Oh, Cumminslaught Meat Sack, who wrote in the subject line of, I got CumminsLot in front of a priest. Dear SuckMaster and Lord of the wide-eyed Molly Gays, First, I have to say that me and my soon-to-be wife have been fans since 2022. We love both Scared to Death, Is We Dumb? Rest in Peace to the funniest dumbest podcast, and also, of course, Time Suck.

I started with Scared to Death and then was indoctrinated into the Time Suckers' of the Curious by the soon to be wife with the Las Vegas shooter Time Suck and haven't looked back since. First off, I agree with Kenny Dumbfuck McDuff serving the Death's Ends or deserving the Death's Ends. That man was pure evil. I also hated that his mother, Addy Assface, defended him and gave new meaning to entitled prick thinking that he was so good that everyone was after him when the Dumbfuck was being the biggest piece of shit and thinking he did nothing wrong.

Second, I have a story to share with you. I love hearing all of the fellow space. There's moments of embarrassment when they've been Cummins lawed. Never thought it would happen to me, but it did. Small bit of background. I graduated college during the pandemic and because of this, there were not many opportunities for me when I left. Due to this, I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do.

I stayed at two companies from 2022 to 2023. Both ended up either closing their doors or were touting layoffs. That layoffs would be occurring. I finally was able to find my passion in helping people in higher education. However, my first job brought me to a religious college. I was surprised. I didn't burst into flames. And I always joke about praising Jeebus when I walk out when we have a meeting. This is where my story of embarrassment begins.

Normally in the mornings I will drive into work and listen to the new Timesucker scared to death on my 30-45 minute drive. When I got to work, I got out of my car at the same time as one of the brothers, a church priest who also works at the college. He was heading into the building. As we are having small talk about our mornings and the drive up there, I must have hit play on my phone accidentally while I was in my pants pocket. It happened to be on full volume. Guess what you happen to be promoting? Oh yeah, the law offices of A

cock and butts. Thanks for that. I immediately turned red, tried frantically to hit pause. The priest looked at me and was like, oh, you listen to a podcast? Is it good? Very nonchalantly. Like nothing weird had happened. I then went, yeah, I have a lot of different podcasts but this one's my favorite. Trying to play it off like doesn't happen. He then goes, yeah, I have a lot of different podcasts, but this one's my favorite. Trying to play it off like nothing happened. He then goes, yeah, I don't listen to podcasts much, but it's nice to hear your podcasts are promoting local offices like that. Always have to support those small businesses.

I had to contain my shit-eating grin. If the priest saw, I'm sure I would have had to what? Like six, I would have had like six to nine hail Mary's So instead I said yep He really likes to support those hard-working small businesses that always look to satisfy their customers the priest then goes It's always good to have satisfied customers. I shit you not I had to drop off my stuff at my desk Stifling my laughter head outside of my car and laugh my ass off Also, my mom visited Italy last month and gave me a gift see attached if you dare now I did look it's a statue of David Kitchen apron with his little dick prominently featured.

And I always say this when I wear it. Maserati Bugatti spaghetti, Maserati Bugatti spaghetti, Maserati Bugatti spaghetti, Luigi pizza pie. Three out of five stars wouldn't change a thing. No apologies for the length. You deserve this lengthy hog. Feels like an item you need if you go to Italy with a family. Also, could you give a shout out to my soon to be wife Holly? We get married this fall and I wouldn't be in this cult without her. We love listening to both Scared to Death and Time Suck all the time and it was the way we bonded more when we were dating and still do. Hopefully we get to join you, Lindsay, and fellow Time Suckers at next year's summer camp. Fuck yeah. Love you Holly and thanks Dan for being the best soccer master. Lindsay and crew you rock as well. Stay awesome Lord of the Suck.

Say hi to Lindsay from Ty and Holly. Oh done. Ty you are so nice. Thank you for such a great message. Congrats to you and Holly. Hello Holly. Thanks for being weird enough to bring Ty into this shit show. Also Ty, was that priest maybe hitting on you? Right, feeling you out? I mean, come on. Who hears a commercial for the law offices of Acock and Butts and does not realize it's a joke? Especially when you talk about customers being satisfied. Hmm.

Hope he was oblivious though, that makes it funnier to me. Thank you for the message. Thanks to everyone who sends in messages to Bojangles at timeslackpodcast.com. And yeah, and thanks for the heads up about the human monsters situation. Thanks Time Suckers. I needed that. We all did. Thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast.

Scared to death, Time Suck each week. Short Sucks, a nightmare fuel on the Time Suck and Scared to Death podcast feeds some weeks. Please do not throw a brick at anyone's head each week. Short Sucks and Nightmare Fuel on the Time Suck and Scare to Death podcast feeds some weeks. Please do not throw a brick at anyone's head this week. You could kill them. Just don't throw any bricks at all anywhere this week. How about you throw a frisbee instead? Get outside. Enjoy your summer. Do something gentle and keep on sucking. I think the pub stick attack is what's gonna stick with me most from this week. I have some questions. What kind of stick was Henry Lightfoot carrying when he walked into a pub and just started whacking?

I hope it was a tree branch that he either found on the ground or on the way to the pub or maybe better Broke it off a tree and then just thought once he saw it, you know what I should do I should walk in the bar and fucking hit people with this Also, if you didn't get your ass beat or arrested How fun would it be just to start whacking people with impunity? Just to walk into a random bar and start hitting people with a stick. And then once you've hit everyone, everybody there, you know, ideally in this fantasy, there's all cowering, but please don't hit me with that stick. And then you just walk out, you know, walk down the street and you just hit anyone you fucking see. I mean, before you got arrested, what a good time, what a

laugh you must have had. I don't think I've ever watched a grown man, you know, hit another grown man with a stick. I don't think I've ever watched any grown up hit another grown up with a stick or anyone else, especially a stranger. But now I very much want to see that happen. I tried to find videos of it, at least on YouTube. I couldn't find like just a random stranger being hit, you know, by another stranger. I did find a YouTube video, pretty satisfying, of a guy who tried to rob a 7-eleven and Then he got beat with a stick if I want to employees one employee held him down While another employee hit him with this stick looked like a broom handle for I'm not joking three minutes straight Fucking three minutes of just getting hit with a stick all that lower body

Just hit him from the waist down mostly in the legs and the butt like he's being spanked and he literally started to cry and begged me please stop hitting him with a stick. It was pretty entertaining but I want to see it in real life. If you have any stick whooping stories please send them in.