Peaky Blinders

From the peaked caps that gang members wore, and from blinder (“exceptional performance”) or from the practice of pulling a victims hat over his eyes so that he could not identify his attacker. There is a folk etymology claiming the "blinder" part of the name comes from the practice of stitching razor blades or weights into the peak of the cap and using it as a weapon to blind one's opponent, but this has been shown to be apocryphal.

Peaky Blinders

1. A street gang based in Birmingham, England, that operated from the end of the 19th century until after the First World War. Gang members had a distinctive appearance: close-cropped hair, bell-bottomed trousers, peaked caps, and a white scarf knotted at the throat.
   • 1899, The Central Literary Magazine - Volume 14, page 72:

     In our suburban retreats, less disturbed by Peaky pranks, though now and again hedges, fences, and flower beds testify to a visit, we are too apt to think it is no concern of ours, or to assert that, as regards Peaky Blinders at any rate, " I am not my brother's keeper".

   • 1989, David M. Downes, Crime and the City: Essays in Memory of John Barron Mays, page 26:

     In other cities similar gangs were known by different names . In Birmingham they were called “ Peaky Blinders ' or ' Sloggers ' , while in Manchester and Salford they were known and feared as ' Scuttlers ' and later as ' Ikes ' or ' Ikey Lads ' .

• peaky blinder