Tommy Shelby fathered more children than he could protect. One grew up in his shadow. Another died before she could walk. And a third — Duke — grew up in a Romani camp, knowing his father’s name but never his world. Season 6 of Peaky Blinders pulled Duke out of hiding. The upcoming feature film, with Barry Keoghan stepping into the role, is about to make him the centre of the story.
The Shelby family tree is tangled, bloody, and full of names that even loyal fans confuse. Duke Shelby, Charles “Charlie” Shelby, Karl Thorne (Ada Shelby’s son) — each carries a different piece of the Shelby legacy. Here is every Shelby son that matters, who played them, what happened to them, and why Duke is the one the film chose to bet on.
Who Is Duke Shelby? Tommy’s Secret Son Explained
Duke Shelby is Tommy Shelby’s illegitimate son by a Romani woman named Zipora. He was raised entirely outside the Shelby family — no Birmingham, no Peaky Blinders, no inherited power. He grew up in a travelling community, knowing who his father was but never meeting him. That changed in Season 6.
Duke’s Introduction in Season 6
Duke appears in Peaky Blinders Season 6, which aired on BBC One in February 2022. He is roughly 17 or 18 at the time — a young man, not a child. Tommy has known about him for years but kept his existence from the rest of the family.
Their first meeting is not warm. Tommy does not embrace a long-lost son. He evaluates one. Duke, for his part, arrives with the quiet self-possession of someone who has survived without a family name to lean on. The show frames the encounter as a test, not a reunion — Tommy watching to see whether Duke has the instincts to be useful.
In the television series, Duke is played by Conrad Khan (credited as Perfeito Sanfilippo in early reports). Khan brings a coiled stillness to the role — watchful, physically capable, not easily impressed by the Shelby name. He is on screen for a handful of scenes, but each one carries weight.
Duke’s Romani Heritage and Dual Identity
The Shelby family has Romani roots on their mother’s side. Tommy, Arthur, Ada — they all carry that heritage. But they grew up in Small Heath, Birmingham. Their Romani identity became something they referenced strategically, not something they lived daily.
Duke is different. He was raised fully within a Romani travelling community. His cultural identity is not a footnote — it is his foundation. When he enters the Shelby orbit, he brings with him a set of values, instincts, and loyalties that do not align neatly with a criminal empire run from a betting shop.
| Attribute | Shelby Dynasty Side | Romani Heritage Side |
|---|---|---|
| Cultural roots | Birmingham criminal underworld | Romani travelling community |
| Upbringing | None — raised away from the family | Raised by his Romani mother, Zipora |
| Identity | Shelby name = power and violence | Romani identity = independence and tradition |
| Relationship to Tommy | Biological heir, potential successor | Effectively a stranger until Season 6 |
That tension between blood and belonging is what makes Duke the most interesting character introduced in the show’s final season. He is a Shelby by DNA and a Romani by upbringing, and those two identities do not share a comfortable border.
Tommy Shelby’s Sons — Duke, Charlie, and the Shelby Family Tree
Tommy Shelby has two surviving sons: Duke and Charles “Charlie” Shelby. A third child, Ruby Shelby (his daughter with Lizzie Stark), died as a young girl in Season 6 — a loss that broke something in Tommy that the show never fully repaired. To understand where Duke fits, you need the full picture.
Tommy Shelby Son Name: Charles “Charlie” Shelby
Charlie Shelby is Tommy’s first-born son, named after Tommy’s uncle Charlie Strong. His mother is Grace Burgess, Tommy’s first great love, who was killed by an assassin’s bullet at a charity gala in Season 3. Charlie was a toddler when Grace died.
Charlie grows up inside the Shelby household, raised primarily by nannies and by Lizzie after she marries Tommy. He is the legitimate heir — the son with the Shelby name on his birth certificate, the one Tommy built the empire to pass down to. But Charlie is also the son Tommy keeps at arm’s length emotionally, terrified of losing another person he loves.
By Season 6, Charlie is old enough to understand pieces of his father’s world but too young to participate in it. He is sheltered in a way Duke never was. Where Duke was hardened by absence, Charlie risks being softened by proximity to power he did not earn.
Ada Shelby’s Son: Karl Thorne
Ada Shelby’s son, Karl Thorne, is named after Karl Marx — a choice that tells you everything about Ada’s politics and her late husband Freddie Thorne’s communist convictions. Karl’s father, Freddie, dies of pestilence (Spanish flu in the show’s timeline) early in the series, leaving Ada to raise him alone.
Karl occupies a unique position in the Shelby world. He is a Shelby by blood (Ada is Tommy’s sister) but a Thorne by name, and Ada has spent years trying to keep him away from the family business. She moved to London, built her own career, and raised Karl with the explicit goal of breaking the cycle.
Whether she succeeded is an open question. By the later seasons, Ada herself is drawn deeper into Shelby operations than she ever intended. Karl’s future in the film remains unconfirmed, but his absence from trailers suggests he is not part of the story’s immediate focus.
Where Duke Fits Among Tommy’s Children
| Child | Mother | Status | Raised By | Role in Shelby World |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charles “Charlie” Shelby | Grace Burgess | Alive | Tommy / Lizzie / nannies | Legitimate heir, sheltered |
| Duke Shelby | Zipora (Romani) | Alive | Romani mother, travelling community | Secret son, now Peaky Blinder |
| Ruby Shelby | Lizzie Stark | Deceased (Season 6) | Tommy / Lizzie | N/A — died as a child |
Duke is the son Tommy did not raise but may need most. Charlie represents continuity — the safe, sanctioned future. Duke represents disruption — an heir with nothing to lose and instincts sharpened outside the family’s protection. The film appears to be betting on disruption.
Duke Shelby’s Mother — Who Is Zipora?
Zipora is a Romani woman from Tommy’s past. Their relationship predates the main events of Peaky Blinders — a connection formed during a period the show never depicts directly. She raised Duke alone, within a Romani community, deliberately keeping him away from the Shelby name.
Zipora’s Identity and Tommy’s Hidden Past
The show reveals almost nothing about Zipora as an individual. She is not given screen time, dialogue, or a visible presence in Season 6. Her existence is communicated entirely through Duke and through Tommy’s acknowledgment that he fathered a child outside his known relationships.
Whether Zipora chose to keep Duke hidden or Tommy made that call is left ambiguous. Both readings work. A Romani woman with a child fathered by Birmingham’s most dangerous man had reasons to stay invisible. Tommy, who compartmentalizes grief and guilt better than anyone on television, had reasons to let her.
What is clear is that Zipora shaped Duke’s identity completely. His Romani heritage, his self-sufficiency, his wariness around the Shelby world — all of that comes from her. She is the most important unseen character in the show’s final season.
The Romani Connection: Esme Lee and the Pattern
Peaky Blinders has a recurring pattern with its Romani women. They enter the Shelby world through relationships with Shelby men, raise children who straddle two cultures, and eventually get burned by the family’s violence.
Esme Lee married John Shelby in Season 1 as part of a truce between the Shelby and Lee families. She bore John’s children, tried to keep them safe, and walked away from the family entirely after John was murdered in Season 4. Esme made the decision Zipora may have made years earlier: the Shelby name is not worth the danger it attracts.
| Character | Romani Connection | Shelby Link | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Esme Lee Shelby | Lee family traveller community | Married John Shelby | Left the family after John’s death |
| Zipora | Romani travelling community | Relationship with Tommy | Raised Duke alone, outside Shelby world |
Both women made the same calculation: distance from the Shelbys is the only real protection. The difference is that Esme’s children disappeared with her. Duke, eventually, came back.
Who Plays Tommy Shelby’s Son? Barry Keoghan as Duke
Barry Keoghan was confirmed to play Duke Shelby in the Peaky Blinders feature film, titled The Immortal Man. The casting announcement landed like a signal flare across entertainment media — partly because of Keoghan’s rising status, partly because it confirmed Duke as a central character in the film rather than a footnote.
How Keoghan Landed the Role
Steven Knight, the show’s creator, has spoken about the film needing to feel genuinely cinematic. The casting reflects that ambition. Keoghan’s name entering the Peaky Blinders universe was treated by the industry as a statement of intent — this would not be a television episode stretched to feature length.
Keoghan’s Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), his lead role in Saltburn (2023), and his turn as the Joker in The Batman (2022) had established him as one of the most in-demand young actors working. Attaching him to Duke Shelby positioned the film as prestige cinema, not franchise obligation.
Cillian Murphy returns as Tommy Shelby. Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Roth, and other new additions fill out the cast. But Keoghan’s role opposite Murphy is the one that defines the film’s generational stakes.
What Keoghan Has Said About the Role
Keoghan has described Duke as a role that resonates personally. In interviews, he has referenced his own childhood — growing up in foster care in Dublin, losing his mother young, navigating a fractured family. Duke is a young man raised without his father, searching for identity in a world that was not built for him. Keoghan has lived some version of that search.
Rather than studying Tommy Shelby obsessively, Keoghan has focused on building Duke as his own character. He has spoken about approaching Duke through his Romani heritage and his mother’s influence rather than through the Shelby name. That is the right instinct. Duke is not Tommy’s shadow. He is a parallel line that finally intersected.
Why His Filmography Makes Him the Right Choice
Keoghan specialises in characters who are simultaneously magnetic and unsettling — outsiders who enter privileged worlds and refuse to play by existing rules. That description fits Duke Shelby almost exactly.
| Film | Character | Key Trait | Duke Shelby Parallel |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) | Martin | Quiet menace, unsettling calm | Duke’s watchful stillness around the Shelbys |
| The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) | Dominic | Wounded innocence, desperate loyalty | Duke’s hunger for belonging despite his outsider status |
| Saltburn (2023) | Oliver Quick | Outsider infiltrating a powerful family | Duke entering the Shelby empire as a stranger with a claim |
Each of those roles required Keoghan to hold two contradictory things at once — vulnerability and danger, charm and threat. Duke Shelby demands the same balance. He is the son who grew up outside power and is now being offered all of it.
What Happened to Tommy Shelby’s Son in the Peaky Blinders Film
The Peaky Blinders feature film, The Immortal Man, picks up the story after Season 6 and places Duke at the centre of the Shelby family’s next chapter. Based on the official trailer released by Netflix and Caryn Mandabach Productions, Duke is no longer the uncertain outsider who arrived in Birmingham. He has absorbed the Shelby identity — and that comes with consequences.
What the Trailer Reveals
The teaser positions Duke in close physical proximity to Tommy throughout. He stands beside his father, not behind him — visual shorthand for a character being treated as an equal, not a subordinate. That framing is a deliberate departure from the television series, where Duke was still earning his place.
Dialogue fragments suggest Duke has fully committed to the Peaky Blinders by the film’s timeline. The Romani outsider from Season 6 has become something harder. Whether that transformation is genuine or strategic — whether Duke is loyal to his father or playing his own game — is likely the film’s central question.
Steven Knight has described the film as a story about consequences. Duke is the most literal consequence Tommy Shelby ever produced: a son shaped by absence, now inheriting an empire built on violence.
Duke as Tommy’s Heir — Legacy and Succession
Tommy spent six seasons building, destroying, and rebuilding his power. Charlie is the legitimate heir, but Charlie is young and sheltered. Duke is the practical choice — old enough, tough enough, and unburdened by the sentimentality that makes Charlie vulnerable.
But inheritance in the Shelby world is never clean. Tommy’s own legacy is soaked in blood, compromise, and trauma. Passing it to Duke does not continue the dynasty. It tests whether the dynasty can survive being handed to someone who did not grow up inside it.
| Element | Tommy Shelby (Series) | Duke Shelby (Film) |
|---|---|---|
| Entry into Shelby world | Born into it | Recruited as a young adult |
| Romani heritage | Ancestral — referenced but not lived | Direct — raised by Romani mother |
| Emotional anchor | Grace, then family duty | Unknown — still forming |
| Narrative function | Builder of the empire | Inheritor — and potential undoing — of it |
Duke as Tommy’s heir is not a succession story. It is a gamble. The Shelby son who carries his father’s blood but not his father’s history, handed the keys to a kingdom he barely knows — and asked to decide whether legacy is something you honour or something you escape.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Shelby Sons
Who is Tommy Shelby’s son in Peaky Blinders?
Tommy Shelby has two sons. Charles “Charlie” Shelby is his legitimate son with Grace Burgess, introduced in Season 2. Duke Shelby is his illegitimate son with a Romani woman named Zipora, introduced in Season 6. Both are alive at the end of the television series, and Duke plays a central role in the upcoming Peaky Blinders film.
What is Tommy Shelby’s son’s name?
Tommy’s legitimate son is named Charles Shelby, usually called Charlie, named after Tommy’s uncle Charlie Strong. His illegitimate son is Duke Shelby. In the upcoming film The Immortal Man, Duke is the primary “Shelby son” in the narrative.
Who plays Tommy Shelby’s son in the Peaky Blinders movie?
Barry Keoghan plays Duke Shelby in the Peaky Blinders film. In the television series (Season 6), Duke was played by Conrad Khan. Keoghan, known for The Banshees of Inisherin, Saltburn, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, took over the role for the feature film.
What happened to Tommy Shelby’s son Duke?
In Season 6, Duke arrives in Birmingham and is gradually inducted into the Peaky Blinders. By the end of the season, he has proven his loyalty and his willingness to act violently on Tommy’s behalf. In the upcoming film, Duke appears to have fully embraced the Shelby identity, standing beside Tommy as a key figure in the family’s operations.
Who is Ada Shelby’s son?
Ada Shelby’s son is Karl Thorne, named after Karl Marx. His father was Freddie Thorne, a communist organiser who died early in the series. Karl was raised by Ada in London, deliberately kept away from the Shelby family business. He does not appear to have a role in the Peaky Blinders film.
Is Duke Shelby Tommy’s biological son?
Yes. Duke is Tommy Shelby’s biological son, born from a relationship with a Romani woman named Zipora that predates the events of the television series. Tommy acknowledged Duke’s existence in Season 6 and brought him into the Shelby family fold.
Who is Duke Shelby’s mother?
Duke’s mother is Zipora, a Romani woman. She raised Duke within a travelling community, away from the Shelby family. Zipora does not appear on screen in the series — her existence is established through Duke’s backstory and Tommy’s acknowledgment of their past relationship.
Will Barry Keoghan be in the Peaky Blinders movie?
Yes. Barry Keoghan plays Duke Shelby in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, alongside Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby. The film also stars Rebecca Ferguson and Tim Roth. It is produced by Netflix and Caryn Mandabach Productions.
The Shelby Son Who Changes Everything
Peaky Blinders spent six seasons building Tommy Shelby into a legend — and six seasons showing exactly what that legend cost. Duke Shelby inherits the fallout. He is the son Tommy hid, the heir Tommy chose, and the wildcard the film is betting its story on.
Barry Keoghan stepping into the role raises the stakes further. An actor built for characters who exist between vulnerability and menace, playing a young man caught between Romani roots and Shelby ambition — the casting is almost too precise.
Whether Duke honours Tommy’s legacy or tears it apart is the question The Immortal Man appears built to answer. Either way, the Shelby son nobody saw coming has become the one everybody is watching.
