The Dark and True Story of The Peaky Blinders Gang

I have come to Birmingham in this particular area in the 19th century, it was well known as a poor neighborhood with terraced housing. The people who lived here worked here in a series of factories and workshops, but these streets are also famous because 19th century, this is where

gang

s like the Peaky Blinders hung out, they became famous of course because of the hit TV show and I've come to meet the historian of that period, Carl Chin, Hi Dean, Carl, Hi Dan, thanks for coming tomorrow, isn't it a pleasure. no, you are Mr. Piggy Blind, it is partly because you are not, does he have some family hi

story

relationship with you, yes, my great-grandfather, Edward Derrick, was a blinder, the term is used in the late 19th century for members of workers'

gang

s, but by the In the late 1890s, it has a broader conversation, as a hooligan in London for violent men, whether or not they were in a gang and, unfortunately, my great-grandfather was such a violent man that he was prosecuted for attacking the police and for attacking other people.

He was also a petty thief, on one occasion he was arrested for stealing as a side of bacon from butcher shops outside the port, but he also beat his wives and used to brutally abuse my great-grandmother, Aida, brutally abusive and she was so badly attacked by he. who often ran to the house next to old mother carey's house with her daughter, my grandmother maisie, to hide from him because he did not enter that house, she had five grown children to take care of, so it was an unpleasant and reprehensible man, well, you I'm here, tell me a little more about these unpleasant representable people.

These are the streets where they lived, worked and fought. They are the streets, in fact, around the old parts of Birmingham. Birmingham, where the gangs really ruled as a ruffian's reign for 30-odd years. The first stop on the tour is a historic pub that is still standing, although unfortunately it is no longer in use, so this pub has been here for a while, yes it has been here for a while. It's called Rainbow, it's on the corner of Hadley Street and High Street Portly and Dan, this is the pub that is deeply connected with the first use in the press of that terrible term Peaky Blinders, are you kidding, aren't you, so are you? what's going on? where it starts now, the term was probably used on the street before dan, okay, okay, but it's the first time it's used on the press march on the 23rd, 1890, a young man named George Eastwood walks into that bar , it is a long bar and it is big.

The room has a couple of small rooms in the back and he is drinking ginger beer and coming to the street from there, okay, it's a fair enough tea, but he will take his drink quietly this Saturday night and according to the mail of Birmingham on Monday. three men with a bad reputation entered the bar one of them was called thomas mukklow another is his brother-in-law george groom they come out of this street and there is a third unknown man and they start insulting paul george for drinking ginger beer, yes, a muco pushes him and He says why are you drinking that tack why are you drinking that rubbish and there's a bit of argy barge here it goes out and according to the papers around a quarter to 11 George is left alone In the pub, my club boyfriend and the unknown man They leave now if they leave through that door and disappear 15 minutes later.

George thought it was safe to go home, so when he gets home he will leave the pub like we just did. He now he walks. along this street below these two dogs turn up and it's okay he never makes it oh they come out of the

dark

and they scream at him and they chase him he has to be petrified he starts running right here all the time here he is running it's all

dark

, don't forget that there have been workshops, factories, consecutive houses everywhere and he is on the run, now they catch him and brutally assault him under one of these two viaducts.

I think it's that triggered and the reason I think it's this. one is that he manages to get up off the ground and run down the next street, he could have done it from a distance adopting much lower shouts, give it to him, hot boys, boyfriend, then he hits him, he falls and they start kicking him. on the street steel toe boots and then the boyfriend takes off his most feared weapon his belt wraps the belt around the wrist leave it about eight inches bottle of the belt heavy metal bolt and then they cut it and cut it off somehow it will be just jump and run down this street now over there now an industrial environment it was the back of a small school with a playground on the left george has to fear for his life jump over the playground wall run across the playground at recess jump to the other side of the back wall turn left knock on the door of the first house mr turner must have been a quiet man, by all accounts he let him in for the next hour or so the boyfriend much love the unknown man is born in a show next to him they send him away we are going to kill him in the end the police come and they take my clothes the only one who is arrested the night on the work side the boyfriend gets away with it so does the unknown man Mundy the Birmingham man says this terrible attack was carried out by the pico

blinders

gang and why where do they get that name from?

Well, the

story

is because they put disposable razor blades on the top of their caps and used them to cut their foreheads, causing blood to get into their eyes. blind them, the real story is much simpler than that, first of all, disposable razor blades were not painted by King Gillette in America until the early 20th century, they were not sold in large quantities in England until just before the First World War, by which time the gangs were gone, secondly, they couldn't afford these razor blades, they were too expensive, thirdly, they didn't need them, they used their boots, their belts, they used knives, stones and bricks , and fourthly, it is not feasible because if I am going to take the cap.

That way, what am I going to do with my own fingers? Yes, cut them if I go back. I have opened my body to be hit. Don't I have the real reason why they call people? I understand what the tip of the cap does. oh, it's blinding in each other yeah, that's the fashion, it's just a happy way, they had very short hair and a lot of them had a pompadour on one side, so they like to show the cliff. We've all been there, we happen to have pubs. an important role to play in Birmingham's gang history, so this is one of the entrances to a pub called the Old Crown on the High Street in the centre.

It is just down the street from Birmingham's famous dance stadium. It is a pub that was originally a guild house. which dates back to the late 15th century and that is why I have brought them here, it is one of the few landmarks left around here that would have been part of the landscape of the

true

peak

blinders

and their predecessors, the labor gangs of the late of the 19th century and early 19th century. the 20th century and everywhere there were street gangs there was the Barford street gang one of the first hard working gangs in Birmingham up there towards the dance hall the Selfridges park street gang now dominates that street four blocks down it was the milk street milk street The gang and the park street gang had a dispute for more than 30 years in which they killed young people.

These gangs were ruthless, they were violent and vile. What role did a pub like this play? Was it some kind of neutral territory or did different gangs of different people do it? Different pubs most of the time they were on the street, that's why there were street gangs, so it's changed a lot around here, yes the landscape has changed dramatically, the cityscape is still the same, the streets are still here, but a lot of The buildings that would have been in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were demolished, they were cleared, all the terraced houses, for example, disappeared.

Those are the houses that the poor people of Birmingham lived in, so the gangs lived just a few meters from us. Now that we are standing, the key thing to understand is that the street gangs belonged to a certain street, they were very localized, so what has come together is a hatred towards the police, which is a negative thing, but in The positive side is this tremendous loyalty among the poorest. The people on your street are inherent to the street, it is as if it actually belonged to them in a society where they have nothing, the street is the only thing they own and what they are, so let's talk about these gangs, what are they doing?

Is it serious crime? What are these street gangs doing in Birmingham? Peak blinders. Lazy people are not serious criminals. A lot of them are petty criminals, but a lot of them are also hard-working guys who go to work but like to fight. So it is a mixture of rogues and ruffians, as well as fighters, why did this increase occur? It's always been happening and we're just starting to learn about the gangs that emerged in the late 1800s, based on my research into the 1860s and similar gangs. It emerged in Manchester, Salford, Scotland, the street ruffians are parts of London and the corner boys of Liverpool, those are the only cities where there are big street gang problems, there are horrible men everywhere, but those are the only places where we have this rampant ruffianism ruining the lives of good people, how it arises and why it arises the police forces are new in the 1840s and 1850s and there are many young people in the big towns and cities there is a different demographic it is a young population On Sundays, the Lord's Day, they gather these The boys do it in vacant lots and they play hard sports and they play field and they do chores by throwing pennies against the wall and whoever was closest would cut them out of the air and those who were If they fell heads, I would leave them at the next closest one. throw them on the wall there were other coin games that were played now these toss and toss games rough sports angered the respect of the middle class because it was being carried out illegally but also on the lord's day and that's why they put pressure on the police . clamp down on youth gatherings, which in my opinion leads to a reaction: many of these young people resist police pressure and form street gangs and then begin 40 years of underground ruffianism, the ongoing battle between the police and the blinders peak often ends at the Steelhouse Lane blockade, a beautiful part of the city, this, yes, this is the Corporation Street area, the Corporation streets there, it was a new street that was laid out because Joseph Chamberlain, the dynamic Mayor of Birmingham, he wanted to have a Parisian-style boulevard that would reflect Birmingham's status as the metropolis of the Midlands.

To gain that status he needed wonderful buildings, mostly made of terracotta, but that meant that many poor people moved away and moved in. They were forced to leave, they had no compensation. One of those new buildings is this one, the dungeon. these were the cells in the building next door the perfect courts you commit a crime you're putting in the holding cells let's check it out take a look oh it looks quite modern here now don't forget dan this building was raised in the late victorian period and was used until recently. We hope that eventually with proper funding it will become the location of the West Midlands Police Museum so these cells are from the 1890s yes 1891 the lock up was opened and the cells around our right side as we walk through here were modern style, you can see the type of cells they are, they have all the amenities here, they have outside assistance for the bathrooms because before that, they would have been buckets, they would have been buckets and this is where the peak blinders would actually have been worn the night before being taken to the courts.

Great, we can imagine the young people you've been writing about. They are highlighted. in the television show that they were in these cells, yes, they would have been in these cells and don't forget, although it is in the 1890s and early 20th century, not the 1920s, as we see in the series, no there was not a single peak. blind gang and there were no blind gangs in the 1920s, Birmingham transformed from being one of the most violent cities in England to one of the most law-abiding cities in England. Well, that's an important question, so why is it like this? investments like this stricter law and order and surveillance and stuff or other things, I think it's interesting, there are a number of factors that come together and they're not planned, it's happening organically, so first of all, let's take a look to the social change we have.

In the late 19th century, a number of concerned vicars, priests and ministers realized that they needed to create facilities for poorer boys to prevent them from joining gangs, for example in the far east, theFather Jane, in old Nicholas, a very difficult part of the east end. he founds a boxing club in birmingham, father pinchard, another man from the high church of england, founds a boxing club in new street station, so i think boxing becomes really important, in my opinion, it really transforms the belief that you should not fight dirty and that you should fight with these.

Unfairly, they are still dirty fighters, but there is a change, so you have boxing, you have football. Football teams are springing up all over the back streets of Birmingham, Manchester, Salford and elsewhere, so instead of fighting each other street by street, they are now playing. football against each other, youth clubs of all kinds are springing up, but alongside those organic changes is a planned campaign by the police to exercise stricter policing and stricter sentences, and that is initiated by Birmingham's new police chief in 1899, Charles Houghton Rafter, I want the entire Tory party of the 90s to be here, but you think sometimes prison was the right choice, on one occasion it worked.

I think if your life is plagued by bullies, you want some action to be taken. and rafter took action, which he did in a very short period after he was taken over as senior manager, he recruited many fit young men and the belief was in the Birmingham police force. Rafter asked his recruits three things: can you read? You can write? To fight, they had to be tall men, five foot nine and a half, five foot ten, they had to be in shape and now they went in pairs because in the most difficult areas there used to be one agent alone.

Are you going to stop again? You're allowed to play pigeon toss or you're going to turn around, they turned around, but now you've got these tough men, many of them Irish, but from all over the British and Irish Isles, so they go in couples and there is a battle. In the streets we may not approve of it today, but there is a battle. Are these the type of young people one is looking for? This is a photo that was probably taken just before beam time and you can see there are quite a few older people. looking old, probably in his 30s, yes, probably in his 30s and 40s, now what's the visor doing?

He recruits a lot of fit young men and they have to do physical training, they have to fight, they have to do boxing, they have to get involved a lot, so we have a lot of please come new young people and an increase in the police force, the inspector Police chief comes to Birmingham 1900, guess how many Birmingham police forces on demand, boy, 500, can you believe 500? So, it is a rapid recruitment campaign. That visor has to be compromised so they can lower the blinders. He also brings a stronger sentence in Birmingham. A blinker could be sent to a month of hard labor for an assault on the police, but they could pay for it with one. well, we need a shilling, we need another in two, six, two and six, so the fines were paid.

The visero says no, that will no longer happen from now on, any assault on the police six months any serious assault has to go to an important court, so stricter sentences are imposed, stricter police surveillance, but there is another issue that I think has been neglected: working class trust in the police in the 1870s, when a police officer called Lyons was murdered by a young woman. gave evidence against her murderer a man called corker he was hanged that woman was attacked by the corporal's mother and sister and the knife attacks on witnesses occurred throughout the 1870s and 80s so let me ask you the question dad, are you living on a tough street and A blind pointy or a careless person has been arrested.

Are you going to present evidence against them? It's probably not Carl, but in the early 20th century they started presenting evidence. The poorest people now have confidence in the police. And I have numerous cases where in particular one case. A young woman follows this gang that has been insulting innocent people and points them out to the police. She lived on the same street. How amazing it is that I believe the beam effect can be demonstrated after her death. He held the position from 1899 until he died in 1935. He was knighted for his police services. When he died tens of thousands of working-class pledges flocked to the bullring and the streets around the ballroom for his funeral to pay their respects. to a man who, according to one of the Birminghams, had The newspapers cleaned up the black spots.

He improved the lives of the poorest. It's amazing to think that these were the same cells where many of the peak blinders were imprisoned, talking about what these are, some of the guys. Yes, we have three in particular, these are them. photographs important because mugshots the city of birmingham police station was one of the first in the country to take photographs of criminals. This guy, Mcnichol, is a blinder. I have seen his life. He has committed violent crimes many times. I don't know if you can see it's a home invasion oh yeah, a robbery um these are some of the marks that he has on him, he looks glamorous, no, he's wearing his, he's wearing rags, isn't he, yeah, he has the blinders scarf he has the flat cap but this is a man who is poor and remains poor for most of his life this is another one here another expressionless peak blinders yes, a little better dressed, he has a better vest and this guy misdemeanors the bird's family was involved in the murder of a policeman stolen bicycles these two guys yes, so they are big street criminals no, they are not, but some of these peak blinders became big criminals just a few after the gangs were eliminated there in birmingham, many of those who moved to the racecourse became members of this informal group of ruffians known as the brothers and the boys and became the birmingham gang who in the 1920s went to war over race control, called protection rackets in the The southeast is a little more adult, is a reminder that these were violent and dishonest criminals, as always.

The story makes you happy to be alive today walking the streets of Birmingham, which are free of those real gangs, leaving us to enjoy the fiction. Welcome to the story. channel that we are relaunching, we have the best exclusive content that goes directly to this historic YouTube channel and you can find out, for example, what the hell I will stay at the top of this mast, you should probably subscribe.