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Billy Kimber is the secondary antagonist of Season 1 of the BBC crime drama series Peaky Blinders.
He is the dominant crime boss in Birmingham who runs most of the race tracks outside of London, bringing him into contact with the Peaky Blinders gang. He is based on the real-life Birmingham crime boss William Kimber.
He was portrayed by Charlie Creed-Miles.
Biography[]
Kimber was born in poverty but managed to claw himself out of the streets to become Birmingham's premier gangster. By 1919 he is a semi-legitimate businessman who controls most of the bookmakers, both legal and illegal, at racecourses all across England outside of London.
Kimber finds out that the Peaky Blinders gang have been fixing his races without his permission and confronts their leader Thomas Shelby at the Garrison pub, threatening to have him shot against a post and repeatedly demeaning him for being a "pikey". Tommy manages to talk him down by offering to work with him against the Lees, a Traveller family who have been robbing Kimber's bookmakers. Kimber agrees to a second meeting at the Cheltenham races.
At the second meeting, Tommy offers members of the Peaky Blinders as additional security at the races in return for 5% of the profits and control of all legal betting pitches north of the River Severn. Kimber agrees on the proviso that he be allowed to have two hours with Grace Burgess, an Irish barmaid who Tommy has brought to the meeting for this purpose knowing that Kimber thinks of himself as a ladies' man. Tommy agrees and leaves Grace at Kimber's house, where he makes a token attempt at flirting with her by bragging about how rich he is before trying to rape her. Grace, who is actually a police spy, reaches for her gun to defend herself from Kimber, but at the last moment Tommy has an attack of conscience and returns to save her by lying that she has the clap.
Kimber continues dealing with the Shelbys and obtains them a legal betting licence allowing them to do business at racetracks. However, meanwhile Tommy, who has designs on Kimber's empire, makes a truce with the Lees and plans to ambush and kill Kimber at the Worcester Races before taking over his territory.
Kimber is informed of the plot by Chief Inspector Campbell, who learned about it from Grace and is hoping that Kimber will kill Tommy. On Black Star Day, the day of the planned betrayal, Kimber brings all his men to Garrison Lane and lines up in front of the Garrison pub for a shootout with the Peaky Blinders. The Shelbys prepare to resist despite being greatly outnumbered using a stolen machine gun, but before the shooting starts Tommy's sister Ada rushes between the two sides with her infant son Karl in the hope of forcing a ceasefire. Both sides decide to hold their fire, but Kimber takes the opportunity to shoot at Tommy hoping he won't return fire, wounding him and killing his friend Danny Owen. Tommy returns fire and kills Kimber with a single shot, at which point his men disperse, having only come in the first place because they were getting paid. Meanwhile, the Lees take over the late Kimber's betting pitches with no resistance since all his men were at the Garrison confronting Tommy.
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 Villains
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The Shelbys Peaky Blinders Birmingham Police force Irish Republican Army Changretta Crime Family The Economic League The British Union of Fascists Others | ||