Yes, Peaky Blinders is actually based on a true story. Well, kind of. Technically, Peaky Blinders follows the Shelby family, a gang of outlaws who infiltrated late 19th-century England — the Shelby's weren't reported to be real people, but the Peaky Blinders gang did exist.

Is Tommy Shelby based on a real person?

Cillian Murphy's character Thomas Shelby may have been a work of fiction, but the real gang's antics were just as dramatic, violent and dark as the show makes out. ... “There was no real Tommy Shelby and the Peaky Blinders were around in the 1890s and yet the series is set in the 1920s."

Who was Thomas Shelby in real life?

While Thomas Shelby wasn't a real person, it turns out that Billy Kimber, the leader of the Birmingham Boys in Peaky Blinders, had a real life analogue. Additionally, while the Peaky Blinders were able to oust the Birmingham Boys in the show, they actually lost to the rival gang in reality.