ISBN: 978-1-903854-88-4
FORMAT: Trade paperback
EXTENT: 302pp
ILLUSTRATED: 16pp of b/w photographs and maps
In 1872, the boom-town of Birmingham, known as the ‘workshop of the world’, erupted in a series of gang wars. Mobs of youths, armed with stones, heavy-buckled belts and knives, fought pitched battles on the streets in a desperate struggle for territorial supremacy. The ‘sloggers’ were the hooligans of their day, and for thirty years they held the streets in a grip of fear.
They drew their numbers from the tens of thousands lured to the Midlands city to make guns, nails and jewellery and to live in overcrowded slums. Between 1800 and 1891, the population grew six-fold, and the sloggers emerged from a tradition of tough masculine pursuits such as bareknuckle prizefighting and from political and sectarian violence.
The Gangs of Birmingham traces their emergence in the Cheapside area around 1870, through the Bordesely Riot of 1874, to the brutal antics of such infamous fighters as the Simpson brothers of Aston, the Harper brothers of Sparkbrook and the police killer George ‘Cloggy’ Williams. It chronicles the so-called Peaky Blinders, who wore long fringes over one eye, the sensational murders of two police officers, and the eventual demise of the gangs at the turn of the century.
Philip Gooderson, M.A., Ph.D., is a retired schoolmaster with a special interest in the history of Victorian street gangs. He is the author of two previous books.
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