Peaky Blinders 5.1
Kathleen Denson
The Series: During the first series, The Garrison was a central point in the Peaky Blinders story, the scene of much mayhem, deal brokering and general plot thickening! It provided the location for the heart and soul of the early days of the TV series and has featured in all four series.
The History: It is believed The Garrison Tavern in Small Heath was frequented by the Peaky Blinders at the turn of the 20th century and was a favourite drinking location of the gang. The real The Garrison is located on Garrison Lane in the Small Heath area of Birmingham, close to the St Andrews football stadium. Before filming for Peaky Blinders started in 2013, Cillian Murphy was taken there by the production crew so he could get a feel for the true Peaky Blinders stomping ground and help perfect his accent.
Today: The real Garrison sadly no longer plays host to anything as interesting or glamourous (or as criminal). It sold at auction in 2014 for just 183,000 after it had closed its doors as a pub. There was a planning application to turn it into flats, however this was rejected and it is hoped it will now remain a pub, however at the time of writing it was very much still derelict.
Why not take yourself along to the Black Country Living Museum and see for yourself, they offer excellent Peaky Blinders focused tours, and even have a Peaky Blinders shop to kit yourself out in the right Peaky attire! BCLM is considered the home of the Peaky Blinders series.
The Series: Particularly in earlier series the gypsy family the Lees played an important role in the events, with indications lead character Tommy Shelby comes from a gypsy background.
The History: Whilst the Lees are understood to be a fictional gypsy family, there were numerous gypsy families in Birmingham at the time of the Peaky Blinders. One notable gypsy settlement was the area known as The Black Patch in Smethwick which was a large Gypsy camp in the early 1900s. It was a patch of land covered in a deep barren layer of furnace waste, which, after their eviction, was cleared down to grass growing soil to create a park. There is even disputed evidence that Charlie Chaplin was born at The Black Patch! In 1909, thousands of gypsies were forcefully evicted from The Black Patch, and it also the location of the undisputed queen of Romany Gypsies in this country, a lady by the name Henty Smith, wife of Esau Smith who was king of the gypsies.
The rest of the Peaky Blinders has been filmed outside of the West Midlands as Birmingham unfortunately lost much of its industrial past due to war and later development. Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool have played a role in filming many locations, with Liverpool playing an important role in the series, providing many iconic period locations.
The History: Watery Lane is considered to indeed be a place where the Peaky Blinders had a strong presence at the turn of the 20th century. This was a central part of Small Heath and the setting as portrayed in the TV series would loosely resemble that of Watery Lane in Small Heath, circa 1900.
For all true Peaky blinders fans, the upcoming Peaky Blinders festival is coming to the West Midlands. Taking place at the BCLM in September 2018, with 1920s themed cocktails, live street theatre and a chance to have a pint at the Garrison Pub.
At the end of the 19th century, the law-abiding citizens of Birmingham were terrorised by a new breed of gang member with two defining passions: natty streetwear and extreme violence. Andrew Davies reveals why so many young, working-class men were drawn to the brutal glamour of the peaky blinders
\"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 ofttimes think nothing of grossly insulting passers 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.\" This anguished letter, signed \"Workman\", was published in the Birmingham Daily Mail on 21 July 1898.
The death of PC Snipe caused an outcry. Editorial commentaries in the Birmingham press railed against the brutality, violence and degradation that confronted the city's magistrates on a daily basis. According to the Mail, \"A large percentage of the rising generation are emerging from boyhood into manhood without acknowledging any authority whatever, and with all the instincts of the savage brute implanted in them.\"
Williams in turn stood trial at Birmingham Assizes on 17 March 1898. After just two days of hearings, he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to penal servitude for life. Passing sentence, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Russell, described the crime as \"atrocious\", noting that it was \"thinly removed\" from murder. The judge evidently thought the jury had been unduly lenient in finding Williams guilty only of manslaughter. The local newspapers applauded the sentence. As the Birmingham Daily Post put it: \"We hope that every rowdy in Birmingham will take the lesson to heart.\"
The Mail dispatched a reporter to Summer Lane, where Matthison lived in the early 1890s, and the correspondent relayed an encounter with a peakie's 'moll'. She too was easily identified by her appearance, since it mirrored those of the peaky blinder himself: \"There was the same lavish display of pearl buttons, the well-developed fringe obscuring the whole of the forehead and descending nearly to her eyes, and the characteristic gaudy-coloured silk neckerchief covering her throat. Her head was hidden beneath an elaborate hat of considerable dimensions and decorated with feathers and poppies.\" (Interestingly, by the late 1890s, the peaky blinder's uniform incorporated the pearl buttons typically associated with the London costermonger.) The reporter concluded, ruefully, that Summer Lane's molls were a \"long-suffering lot\".
Like all youth fashions, peaky blinder style had a limited shelf-life. In the early decades of the 20th century, young people in Birmingham, as elsewhere across Britain, began to look to Hollywood for a new sense of glamour. Had a youth dressed as a peaky blinder made an appearance in Birmingham in the 1920s he would have been greeted with astonishment, although middle-aged passers-by might have chuckled in recognition.
Andrew Davies is the author of City of Gangs: Glasgow and the Rise of the British Gangster (Hodder & Stoughton, 2013). He discussed the real peaky blinders in a forthcoming episode of our podcast
"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 ofttimes think nothing of grossly insulting passers 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." This anguished letter, signed "Workman", was published in the Birmingham Daily Mail on 21 July 1898.
The death of PC Snipe caused an outcry. Editorial commentaries in the Birmingham press railed against the brutality, violence and degradation that confronted the city's magistrates on a daily basis. According to the Mail, "A large percentage of the rising generation are emerging from boyhood into manhood without acknowledging any authority whatever, and with all the instincts of the savage brute implanted in them."
Williams in turn stood trial at Birmingham Assizes on 17 March 1898. After just two days of hearings, he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to penal servitude for life. Passing sentence, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Russell, described the crime as "atrocious", noting that it was "thinly removed" from murder. The judge evidently thought the jury had been unduly lenient in finding Williams guilty only of manslaughter. The local newspapers applauded the sentence. As the Birmingham Daily Post put it: "We hope that every rowdy in Birmingham will take the lesson to heart."
The Mail dispatched a reporter to Summer Lane, where Matthison lived in the early 1890s, and the correspondent relayed an encounter with a peakie's 'moll'. She too was easily identified by her appearance, since it mirrored those of the peaky blinder himself: "There was the same lavish display of pearl buttons, the well-developed fringe obscuring the whole of the forehead and descending nearly to her eyes, and the characteristic gaudy-coloured silk neckerchief covering her throat. Her head was hidden beneath an elaborate hat of considerable dimensions and decorated with feathers and poppies." (Interestingly, by the late 1890s, the peaky blinder's uniform incorporated the pearl buttons typically associated with the London costermonger.) The reporter concluded, ruefully, that Summer Lane's molls were a "long-suffering lot".
93ddb68554