The Real Peaky Blinders
3/26/202639 min
Today, we step beyond the slow-motion swagger and into the gritty, complex reality of the Peaky Blinders. Who were the gangsters behind the myths? And what was life actually like in the backstreets of late 19th and early 20th-century Birmingham?
We’re joined by social historian Carl Chinn to uncover the true story of Birmingham’s infamous gangs. Carl is the author of ‘PEAKY BLINDERS: The Real Gangs and Gangsters’, and features in the documentary ‘Peaky Blinders: The Real Story’.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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First 90 secondsDan Snow· Host0:00
Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up to HistoryHit and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like How William Conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard III. We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe. The Peaky Blinders, they existed. But who were they? At the turn of the 20th century, Birmingham in England was an industrial powerhouse, celebrated for its innovation and enterprise and civic pride. But beneath that reputation lay another story, one of brutal gang warfare. It was home to the infamous Peaky Blinders. Thanks to global success of the Peaky Blinders TV show and now the movie, the term has become synonymous with style, swagger, cinematic gangster glamour. But how much of that is actually true? From the rise of the so-called slogging gangs in the 1860s to the violent racecourse wars of the 1920s, this episode uncovers a world far less glamorous, far more revealing than the fiction. It's a story not just about crime, but about poverty, policing, social change in industrial Britain. For this, I am joined by the one and only,