Search results
electric & acoustic bass, ethnic instr / electric and acoustic bass: ethnic instr (6 episodes, 2022) Nick Launay. ... music producer / music by (6 episodes, 2022) Larry Mullins. ... drums & percussion / drums and percussion (6 episodes, 2022) Anton Pearson.
Alfie Evans-Meese. Finn Shelby (6 Episodes) Neil Bell. Harry Fenton (5 Episodes) Charlie Creed-Miles. Billy Kimber (4 Episodes) Samuel Edward-Cook. Danny Whizz-Bang (3 Episodes) David Dawson.
- Overview
- Character History
- Relationships
John Michael Shelby (also known as Johnny and John Boy) is one of the two former tritagonists (alongside Polly Gray) of Peaky Blinders. He is a British street gangster who was a soldier during the First World War. He is the third son of Arthur Shelby Sr, brother of Arthur, Thomas, Ada and Finn Shelby, as well as being the husband of Esme Shelby. John has seven children, two sons and two daughters with his deceased first wife Martha Shelby, and three children with Esme, whose genders are unknown. One of his daughters is called Katie Shelby, but his other children’s names are unknown.
John is a high ranking member of the Peaky Blinders, as well as being a 1/3 shareholder of the Shelby Family business, Shelby Company Limited.
Background
Along with his two older brothers Thomas and Arthur Shelby Jr., John was a soldier of the Warwickshire Yeomanry, which served as cavalry and machine gunners in the First World War. Being the third oldest Shelby, John frequently attends any Shelby family meetings that take place in the Shelby home. From these meetings it is evident that John does not trust and dislikes coppers, and isn’t afraid to hurt them to make them leave the Peaky Blinders alone. John idolizes the Peaky Blinders moniker, the whole image and what they stand for. Whilst he is more good humored than his older brothers, he has the famous Shelby temper. His actions can sometimes be reckless, but he has shown to be more similar to Thomas when dealing with the family business. While he is not as cutthroat as Thomas or rash as Arthur, he is just as dangerous and capable. John originally helps run the books for the Peaky Blinders, suggesting he is better with numbers and books than his brother Arthur.
Series 1 · 1919
John is twenty-four years old, handsome, and immaculately groomed, first seen at the blackboard of the betting shop with a ledger in his hand. He aids Thomas and the Peaky Blinders in fixing the race of the horse Monaghan Boy. At one point, John is walking down the alley of Slum Street and gets interrupted by Polly Shelby, who points a Webley revolver at John’s head, informing him that his younger brother Finn was playing with it that very afternoon. John promises her that he will no longer leave guns lying around for his younger brother to find. After Arthur Shelby Jr. gets interrogated and beaten up by Inspector Campbell, John, along with the rest of his siblings, helps clean Arthur up. John is present at Thomas’s first meeting with Billy Kimber at The Garrison Pub, and though he initially resists working with the insulting man as Kimber Orders Tommy to go on his knees and pick up a coing Kimber threw to the grounds to see if Tommy is worth dealing with, While John doesnt appreciate that he obeys his older brother Thomas’s wishes and keeps this opinion to himself. Along with the Peaky Blinders, John stops the Lee family at the Cheltenham races and helps return to Billy Kimber his stolen money. In Episode 1.4, John calls a family meeting. He informs them that he is going to marry the prostitute Lizzie Stark so that she can help him with his kids, who have become exceedingly difficult to take care of. The plan fails when Thomas later informs him that he offered Lizzie money to service him "one last time" and that she said yes, Tommy later inform John of this and John decides not to Marry Lizzie. The next day, Thomas reveals to John that he will be getting married to a Lee family member to settle the dispute between the Shelbys and the Lees. At first he is furious, but John agrees and marries Esme Lee, whom he is instantly attracted to upon meeting her at the altar, and they have a wedding with fireworks and dancing. His younger sister Ada Shelby’s water breaks soon after the ceremony, and she gives birth to her son, and John’s nephew, Karl. When John’s father, Arthur Shelby Sr. shows up to their family home, John is simply uninterested, unlike his brother Arthur who had missed the man greatly.
Series 2 · 1922
John is now 27 years of age, and his relationship with Esme is doing well. At a Shelby family meeting, John expresses his dislike of Thomas’s plan for southward expansion of the Shelby Family business to London, stating that he doesn’t want to change things as their business is already successful and that expanding the business is a dangerous idea. Thomas offers him a chance to leave his title and the business before the expansion, but John decides to stay. Along with his two older brothers, he heads to a jazz club in London run by Darby Sabini. With his family, John also attends the grand reopening of the Garrison Pub, which is now run by Arthur. John heads with his brothers and his cousin Michael Gray to the Doncaster Bloodstock to buy a 1,000 guinea horse. He also heads with Arthur and Thomas to London once again to tear up Sabini’s club. After hearing about Michael and Isaiah getting into a brawl at The Marquis of Lorne, John heads there with Arthur and they destroy the pub to keep the reputation of the Peaky Blinders intact. In an effort to get his brother Arthur out of prison, John obeys Thomas’s orders and blows up the empty residence of Field Marshal Henry Russell, (also so that Thomas does not have to go to the man’s house in order to assassinate him). He heads to the Epsom Derby along with the Peaky Blinders gang. There, John helps ruin Sabini’s plans by confiscating his men’s takings and destroy his licences at gunpoint.
Esme Shelby
John marries Esme in order to keep the Lee Family and the Shelbys from not only going to war with each other but to stop fighting amongst themselves. Esme and John have three children together and Esme is also the step-mother to his other four children from his first marriage with Martha who died before the show. Although initially an arranged marriage, they do love each other, as displayed by their affection towards one another and when they made a solemn promise to each other. In Season 3, John promises to buy the gypsy traveller Esme a house with lots of land in order for him and the family to camp out when she feels like she's being cooped up. He also defends her when Tommy accuses her of betraying him when his son, Charlie, is kidnapped.
John's children
It has been mentioned multiple times that John has four children but they were never seen onscreen in the first series. In Episode 1.4, John informs his family of how difficult they have become to manage for him as a single father. In Episode 1.6, one of the kids yells up to him saying "Katie has wet the bed" indicating he has at least one daughter. In the second series it's mentioned in the episode about the expansion in the family meeting that Esme has a baby herself, and in the third series Esme is once again pregnant, totaling John's children to 6. Though John's children are never named, they are seen throughout the third series at family events and photos. From those shown on screen, he has a daughter named Katie and another unnamed daughter and two sons from his first wife Martha. His children with Esme are unnamed, though he does refuse to name their second child Arthur after his father's death.
Tommy Shelby
John admires his older brother. In the first season they have a conversation about how the whole family should look out for each other. Tommy tells him that their grandfather would be proud of John, since John runs the books. John keeps following his brothers orders, however he does sometimes tire of it and expresses that Tommy needs to be more clear with the brothers about the bigger picture, leading to the tense conversation between the two of them in season 3. Tommy was devastated at his brother's death and gives a speech at his funeral, in which John is cremated inside a caravan as their Gypsy heritage dictates. Other than that Tommy is a good brother to John as seen when he informs John that Lizzie Stark had said yes to when Tommy asked her if she would service him one last time as a trick question.
Peaky Blinders Series 1 Characters. Meet the cast and characters of the post-WWI Birmingham gang crime drama. ... View John Shelby. Ada Shelby. Played by Sophie Rundle.
Peaky Blinders: Created by Steven Knight. With Cillian Murphy, Paul Anderson, Sophie Rundle, Helen McCrory. A gangster family epic set in 1900s England, centering on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby.
- (656K)
- 2014-09-30
- Crime, Drama
- 60
Played by Joe Cole. A proud Peaky Blinder who loves to be the cock of the walk. The youngest of the three Shelby brothers, John lost his wife during the war and has been left to bring up their ...
People also ask
Who are the characters in Peaky Blinders Series 1?
Who are the actors in Peaky Blinders?
Who is John Michael Shelby in Peaky Blinders?
Who is Peaky Blinder?
How old is John in Peaky Blinders?
Why does John idolize the Peaky Blinders?
Series Cast 237. Cillian Murphy. Thomas ... Peaky Blinders Driver (1 Episode) Charlie Anson. ... John Purcell. Officer 2 (1 Episode) William Andrews. Butler (1 ...
