Historian Carl Chinn explores the mass gang movement that originated in Birmingham and other industrial cities in the 19th century and evolved into modern gangsterism in the early 20th.

Chapter 1:
Examines the origins of the phenomenon in Birmingham, from the first mention of the term Peaky Blinders in the popular press in 1890 and the street gangs that stretched back into the Victorian era as far back as the 1860s, when they were known as slogging gangs.

Chapter 2:
Carl follows the career of Birmingham petty thief Billy Kimber who - with his Birmingham gang - rose to dominate the money-spinning illegal rackets around the growing sport of horse racing at the start of the 20th century. The First World War disrupted his quest to build an empire, but after the war Kimber moved south to take over the rackets in the lucrative southern racecourses.