The Traditional or Dominant Interpretation
For many years, the dominant historical narrative regarding the Peaky Blinders portrayed them as a specific and notorious criminal gang. This interpretation, while acknowledging they were one of many “slogging gangs” in the city, treated them as a distinct entity with a recognizable name and reputation. This viewpoint is largely shaped by early 20th-century accounts and popular memory, which tended to consolidate various disparate acts of street violence under a single, memorable banner.
According to this traditional view, the Peaky Blinders were a coherent gang that emerged from the Small Heath area of Birmingham in the 1890s. Their defining characteristics were their extreme violence and their sartorial flair. The name itself became central to their legend. The most famous and enduring story, repeated for decades, is that the gang’s name originated from the practice of sewing disposable razor blades into the peaks of their flat caps. These caps could then be used as a brutal, improvised weapon to slash or blind an opponent during a street fight. This visceral image cemented the Peaky Blinders’ reputation for cunning and savagery and became the most widely accepted explanation for their name.
Historians who subscribe to this interpretation, such as Philip Gooderson in his book The Gangs of Birmingham, rely on contemporary newspaper accounts that name the “Peaky Blinders” as a specific group. They point to reports of organized attacks and territorial battles as evidence of a structured gang. For example, when a group of men from Cheapside attacked another group, newspapers would label one side the “Cheapside Sloggers” and the other the “Bordesley Peaky Blinders,” suggesting a recognized group identity tied to a specific locality. The traditional view sees these gangs as precursors to more organized crime, operating with a loose hierarchy and engaging in extortion, robbery, and violent assaults to maintain control over their territory.
This perspective emphasizes their role as a genuine criminal threat that required a significant police response. The appointment of a new police chief, Charles Haughton Rafter, in 1899 is often cited as a turning point. Rafter’s crackdown on gang violence is seen as a direct response to the menace posed by the Peaky Blinders and their rivals. In this narrative, the Peaky Blinders were a real, named gang whose reign of terror was eventually brought to an end by a combination of tougher policing, the rise of more powerful competitors like the Birmingham Boys, and the societal changes brought by World War I. While this interpretation does not suggest they were a national crime syndicate like the fictional Shelbys, it does present them as a formidable and identifiable entity that dominated the Birmingham underworld for a specific period.
