John Shelby (1895-1926) was the younger brother of Arthur and Tommy Shelby and a member of the Peaky Blinders gang. He was murdered by the American Mafia in 1926.
Biography[]
John Shelby was born in 1895, the son of Arthur Shelby, Sr., an Irish Traveller, and the younger brother of Arthur and Tommy Shelby, and the older brother of Ada and Finn Shelby. He served in the Warwickshire Yeomanry of the British Army during World War I, and, after the war, he became involved with the Peaky Blinders gang under his brothers, rigging a horse race with them in 1919. That same year, he married Esme Lee in an arranged marriage devised to end the feud between the Peaky Blinders and the Lee Family. In 1922, he took part in the bombing of Field Marshal Henry Russsell's home in order to free his brother Arthur from prison, and he also took part in the gang's feud with Darby Sabini, tearing up his pub and destroying his liquor license. In 1924, he killed Mafia boss Vicente Changretta's son Angel Changretta due to a feud over Angel's relationship with John's ex-fiancee Lizzie Stark, leading to war between the Peaky Blinders and the Mafia. That same year, he was arrested for taking part in the bombing of a train at the behest of the Russians, but he was pardoned in 1926, and he returned to his wife and children at their isolated countryside estate. He and Michael Gray were ambushed by mafiosi at the estate after John missed a warning call from Tommy, and he was riddled with a dozen bullets and killed.