Hello, I'm Jonathan and I look after the guns here at the Royal Armouries. We have a selection here
on the table here to show you. This is a TV-based short video that we're doing
about the show Peaky blinders, a British made historical drama that hopefully, if
you're watching this, you're already watching. I'm a big fan of it,
increasingly actually and so I thought I would see what we have in the collection
that's similar to what's used in the show and talk you through some of the
thoughts I had watching the show and give you an idea of the sort of
historical weapons that were used by criminal gangs and others in the UK. The
obvious criminal weapon I suppose throughout history has been
the pistol or handgun if you're in the States.
We've got a selection here of revolvers. The revolver was still a dominant type
at the time, we'll be coming to an example of the self-loading pistol.
So probably, if you had to pick one iconic firearm from this particular TV show it
would probably be the Webley Mk VI service revolver and this this speaks to
the origin of the show of a character, main character Tommy Shelby and
various others. As ex-soldiers, as engineers, miners,soldiers doing that work
you might be armed with a sidearm of this nature. Typically this was an
officer's weapon, also issued to people like vehicle crews, artillery men, things
like that. People who did not need a rifle as their primary weapon.
Lots and lots of these came
back with servicemen, officers purchased their own but they were also available
on issue. We get more offers of donation of these than probably anything else or
historically we certainly have and as time goes on it will be less, there will be fewer of them. But they are still out there in
huge numbers considering only about 400,000 of these were made, we see
them quite frequently. It's a standard British military weapon so of course,
you find lots of them in Britain. This is a .455 caliber weapon, so
similar diameter to the American 45 ACP but it's a revolver cartridge, it's got a rim
on it. You load it quite simply either singularly or with a speed loader, we don't
see that in the show. In fact, we very rarely see loading in film and TV
unless it's done for effect. Six rounds as we'd expect from
a revolver. We close it up and we can begin firing on a double action or
as we often see on TV, cock it for what's called a single action. In other words,
the trigger is performing the signal action of firing the gun, not
revolving the cylinder and firing the gun which is what happens if you pull through on the trigger. Anyway
single action or double action and some other YouTube videos about that if
you want to know more. This one I've chosen specifically as a
late example, so the show starts in 1919 and we're up to I think 1926 now if
you're keeping up with your season four. This one's dated 1924 says 'Mk VI'
because it's the Mk VI Webley and this one's made at Enfield. Production
did happen at Enfield, it's not too widely known and the Royal Crown appears in there
as well so it's a slightly different one, typical British prick marks on it apart
from that. So this is Tommy's weapon of choice, for a long time anyway
other characters make extensive use of it as well it's the sort of go-to of the series.
The other Major Webley in the show is the mark IV. We see this in the hands of
various characters as well and it's, as the mark IV name would suggest, the
early version. It has what's called the bird's head grip which is not as ergonomic perhaps, but that's subjective
and typically the shorter barrel, although MK IV frames were fitted with a long barrel as well
if you want to get nerdy about it, which we do.
Otherwise, exactly the same, functions in exactly the same way it's just a little bit more concealable under your overcoat or
whatever you happen to be wearing and this one, unlike the MKVI example we have,
this Webley MKIV has got some additional markings on it. So, two arrows
facing each other, hopefully you can see that there, and also up here. So, whereas
this perhaps could have been brought home by a a soldier, this one has
been officially sold out of military service, that's what this mark means. So
the single arrow means it belongs to the government and double opposing arrows mean
they've sold it. This was at a time when firearms were sold routinely from
military service and anyone potentially could buy them. So this is
one that you might have bought after you'd come back, if that makes sense. Even
though they're very similar things and you'll find these marks on a MKVI Webley as well
They're just an interesting detail as to how a
character like this might get a gun since they were much more available in
the UK then than they are now, from various different channels but this one
could have been bought directly from the government or from an
authorized seller. So both of those are in use.
There's also, well there's something called the Webley Bulldog, which is a
generic type but also a specific Webley model, their Webley II, Bulldog.
There's some suggestion that Polly, Tommy's aunt Helen McCrory's character
has one of these. I'm not entirely sure of that, I'd have to go back and freeze frame it
but I've chosen a generic Bulldog type revolver. I've chosen this one because it was
actually made in Birmingham and that would not be uncommon. Birmingham was
a manufacturing center for firearms second, not even second, it was parallel to
London depending on the period for gun manufacturer. So perfectly plausible that a
character in the show would be carrying a Birmingham made revolver, not a
London made original Webley. So this one is, I'm going to have to read this and we'll look at it in close-up
as well 'Lincoln Jeffries, gun, rifle and
revolver manufacturer, 121 Steel House Lane, Birmingham. A nice little bit of social history in steel there.
Amazing how much writing you can fit on a tiny little pocket revolver. So this one,
unlike the one of the show, I think the one in the show is a
larger caliber probably a .450 or something like that. This is a .320 or 32
in American. Fixed cylinder, so you open up the loading gate, put it on safety
notch and rotate to each loading position, load it that way and realistically
actual criminal gunfights, when they did happen,
you're not reloading probably at all, you're firing the the contents of your
weapon and either running away or getting shot. It's extremely unusual that
any reloading takes place. Even today, gunfights in the street when they happen and perhaps
you might carry more than one gun to fire more shots but it's very rare that you see reloading. That's
partly because it's so fiddly to accomplish with these relatively
primitive handguns. We've got yet another Webley here, the RIC or a version
of it at least. So, the Webley's nomenclature at this time
was a number 1 for the RIC, number 2 for the Bulldog so this is like the big
brother of the Bulldog revolver. Full caliber, this is just a particularly nice
nice, very high quality blued finish. It's Webley standard but many
examples have worn and aged over the years as you might imagine. This is
older I should say, the MKVI Webley, 1915 this was introduced, sort of the
ultimate version of the Victorian series of Webley's and this is one of those
Victorian guns, 1880s, the unfluted cylinder is typically an earlier feature as is
their oval or ovoid barrel profile as well and again the simpler loading
system, more complicated loading system with a loading gate and you roll the
cylinder from there. This one's full of grease and this this
actually has a ejector rod so you pivot that out into alignment with the case
you wish to reject and you push it out so you can imagine that would take some time and the
Italians have probably shot you by the time you've reloaded, in context of this piece of fiction that
we're talking about. So, I'll put that down, I have also
pulled out a version of what we see the character Grace using in the first
series, which is this Harrington & Richardson
another type of revolver and I've gone with that, not only because this is
Grace's secret agent role and so it's a different idea
of the other side essentially to the criminals who are using these other
revolvers but also because it's a top break, designed with a different latch from the Webley, so works
in a similar way but doesn't have the side latch, it's a little fiddly but once
again if you have to draw this from a handbag or a vest pocket or something
chances are you're going to fire what's in it, which in this case is five rounds of .32 Smith and Western
and this is also a double action, or double action / single action
mechanism. But much much smaller and, you'll find, historically most
pistols, most handguns will be used in self-defense or by criminals or both.
You don't have to be a legal owner to engage in self-defense, were of this sort of
size and power because they are so concealable, this will just sit under a
jacket, you won't know it's there. Something like the
sort of macho Webley, good luck hiding that anywhere, that's huge.
You do need a big overcoat to conceal that. The MKVI here has come to us
with this leather flap holster. We usually see, in Peaky Blinders it's a sort
of shoulder holster of some sort. They did exist at that period, for the military
role it was always a leather flap holster on the belt.