Chester Campbell (1854-1922) was an Inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary who was hired by Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill to locate a stolen arms shipment in Birmingham in 1919. While in Birmingham, he developed a vendetta against the Peaky Blinders gang, leading to his murder at the hands of Polly Shelby in 1922.
Biography[]
Chester Campbell was born in Belfast, County Down, United Kingdom in 1854 to a Protestant Ulster Scots family, and he joined the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1884. He was tasked with ridding Belfast of crime and corruption, as well as gang activity. Campbell continued to serve in the RIC during World War I, and his absence of military service during the war was a sore spot for him.
Mission in Birmingham[]
Campbell speaking to the Birmingham constabulary in 1919
In 1919, Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill sent Campbell to the city of Birmingham to locate a stolen shipment of military equipment and ammunition, as well as to cleanse the city of the Peaky Blinders gang, the IRA, and the communists. Campbell hired several Northern Irish policemen as "Specials" for his hunt, as he did not trust the corrupt local police force. He met with Churchill after establishing his headquarters, and Churchill warned him that he would have to be discreet about his methods, as murders made the news in Britain. Campbell arrested and tortured the Peaky Blinders leader Arthur Shelby, but Shelby revealed that he had no knowledge of a robbery; meanwhile, Campbell's undercover agent Grace Burgess theorized that Tommy Shelby, Arthur's brother, was the real leader of the gang, and that the IRA may have stolen the guns, as the heist was too complex for a gang to carry out.
Campbell proceeded to raid houses in Small Heath, the home base of the Peaky Blinders, and he later met with Tommy, who convinced him to let him take over Billy Kimber's businesses in exchange for helping him find the shipment. Campbell agreed, but he continued his campaign against the seditious forces in the city, arresting CPGB members Stanley Chapman (who died in his custody) and Freddie Thorne (who escaped with Shelby's clandestine help). After Burgess found the guns, she decided to resign, and she kindly rebuffed Campbell's offer to marry her; Campbell realized that she had developed feelings for Shelby. Campbell later found that Burgess and Shelby were having an affair, so he provoked a gang war between Kimber's Birmingham Boys and the Peaky Blinders, telling Kimber of Shelby's plans to betray him. Ultimately, the war ended with Daniel Owen and Kimber's deaths, and everyone else in the two gangs survived. Campbell later failed to arrest Burgess, who shot him in the leg before escaping.
Downfall[]
Over the next two years, Campbell was promoted to Major and Chief of Staff of MI5, and he walked with a cane due to Burgess' shooting of him. Campbell was sent back to Birmingham by Churchill with the objective of assassinating the criminal Field Marshal Henry Russell, and Campbell succeeded in blackmailing Tommy Shelby into doing so. However, he secretly planned to have the UVF assassinate Shelby to keep him quiet, and he also made the mistake of raping Shelby's aunt Polly Shelby, who went along with it in order to secure the release of her son Michael Gray from prison. After the Field Marshal's assassination, Shelby found Campbell at the Epsom bar, speaking to Churchill over the telephone. Shelby shot him in the heart as he pleaded for mercy, killing him.