Professor Carl Chinn MBE DL Ph.D. F.Birm.Soc. Professor Chinn’s Birmingham is not a backdrop—it’s a living story. Brick by brick, voice by voice, it pulses with the histories of working-class families, of factories and back-to-backs, of struggle and pride. His work has always begun in the same place: the street, the home, the heart of the city.
The grandson and son of illegal bookmakers in Sparkbrook and the child of Aston factory workers, Professor Chinn came of age surrounded by the voices of people whose stories were rarely told. He grew up not in archives, but in alleyways thick with memory. And when he began to write, he didn’t just tell history—he reclaimed it.
Professor Chinn has authored over 35 books that speak to the lives often left out of textbooks: housing, manufacturing, migration, women’s work, urban hardship, and everyday resistance. His belief is unwavering—that history belongs to everyone, and that each life, however ordinary it may seem, is worthy of record. It is a conviction that has shaped his career as a social historian, broadcaster, speaker, and community champion.
His research into Birmingham’s gang culture led to the bestselling Peaky Blinders: The Real Story, a corrective to mythmaking that reframed the Peaky Blinders not as anti-heroes, but as predators who fed off their own. The book reached number one in the Sunday Times charts and has since been translated into fifteen languages. But for Professor Chinn, popularity was never the measure—truth was.
Professor Chinn’s passion extends far beyond the page. He is a campaigner, an activist, and a fierce defender of working-class heritage. He played a central role in saving Birmingham’s last back-to-backs, helped secure memorials for workhouse paupers and Blitz victims, and fought for the future of local industry—supporting workers at Longbridge, Alstom, and HP Sauce in moments of uncertainty and closure.
As Professor of Community History at the University of Birmingham, and now Emeritus Professor, Professor Chinn helped young people explore their pasts in order to understand the present. His work in schools today reflects that same ethos—encouraging pupils to dig deep into family memory, and to discover how Birmingham’s story connects to the world.
For over 25 years, Professor Chinn has been a voice on the radio, in the press, and in the streets—bringing history to life not as nostalgia, but as power. He remains a weekly columnist, a broadcaster, a lecturer, and a regular contributor to documentaries and podcasts, both local and global.
In all this work, Professor Chinn has stayed close to his roots. His storytelling is never distant. It is warm, urgent, and loyal. Loyal to people. Loyal to place.
He was awarded the MBE in 2001 for services to local history and charity, and appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the West Midlands in 2023. But his greatest legacy lives in the city itself—in the voices he’s helped preserve, the truths he’s fought to tell, and the pride he has given back to Birmingham.
Professor Chinn’s work reminds us that history isn’t written from above.
It’s spoken, lived, and passed down. And it begins where he began: at street level.
