Peaky Blinders: these are the real-life people depicted in the show

The story that  Steven Knight has told us throughout six seasons of Peaky Blinders that are already available and in full on Netflix and whose end will be told in the form of a movie on the big screen is fictitious, but, as fans of the British fiction, certain characters appear throughout the story that is based on people who existed in real life.

Some of them, like Winston Churchill or Charlie Chaplin, are obvious, but there are other characters that viewers may not know are based on real figures. Some of them are as charismatic as the one played by Tom Hardy.

Without going any further, even the gang led by Tommy Shelby is based on a real gang. Knight conceived his idea for Peaky Blinders from the stories his parents, who grew up in an area of ​​south-east Birmingham, told him as a child: “My parents had connections with illegal bookmakers, as many people in those days,” he acknowledged. himself for a report of the series. So, from there, the creator set out to build his story by intermingling “family legends and historical facts.”

“By order of the Peaky Blinders.” The True Story of the Birmingham Gang

It is a fiction woven in a real setting with great dramatic and cinematographic beauty, but which, for very English reasons, has been consigned to the history books [Steven Knight]

Throughout the series, a few of these characters appear who are documented to have existed in real life, although not all of them have images of sufficient quality to get an idea of ​​their face. Fortunately, many others do. You can see them below:

Billy Kimber

One of Tommy’s first enemies in the series was Billy Kimber when the Peaky Blinders gang started fixing horse races. Kimber existed and was the head of a gang known as the Birmingham Boys, on which the series’ main gang is inspired and who was famous in the North of England in the 1910s and 1930s for their control of several racetracks. . Unlike the series, Kimber died of illness in 1942 and not from a gunshot from the leader of his rival gang.

Oswald Mosley

In season 5, Peaky Blinders introduced Sir Oswald Mosley, a member of parliament who wanted Tommy’s help in launching a new party in Britain but has ended up becoming one of his greatest enemies. In real life, Mosley was an equally controversial British politician who, disillusioned with traditional partisan politics, became the founder and leader of a far-right party known as the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and became a major figure. support for Hitler in Britain.

Jessie Eden

Jessie Eden was a recurring character in the fourth and fifth seasons of Peaky Blinders. A communist and union coordinator in the midst of fighting for equal pay for women, she appeared in Tommy’s life when she threatened to start a strike in one of his factories. The character of Jessie Eden is based on the real British activist and union leader also known as Jessie Eden, who became famous for leading the 1939 rent strike in Birmingham, among other protests over the years, and who went on to history as a strong advocate for women and social justice.

Brilliant Chang

Billy “Brilliant” Chang has a pivotal role in the fifth season of Peaky Blinders as the leader of the Triad and Tommy Shelby’s opium purveyor. The real Chang was a charismatic immigrant who ran a Cantonese restaurant in Birmingham before turning to drug dealing and was dubbed the “dope king” by the press.