Factual error: It's Christmas Eve 1925. Tommy and his son leave a mince pie for 'Santa and Rudolph', but there was no reindeer called Rudolph until the 1930s. The character's author hadn't even graduated by 1925, and only began writing a book about a red-nosed reindeer in 1939.
Factual error: Michael's impending 18th birthday is often mentioned as the time he becomes an adult and can make his own decisions. The age of majority in 1922 (and until 1970) was 21.
Factual error: Kenya tea chests are marked KTDA. (Kenya Tea Development Agency). This did not come into being until the early 1970's.
Episode #3.5 - S3-E5
Factual error: All of Tommy's former men salute him. As a sergeant-major and not an officer he would never be saluted. This is drummed into all soldiers and they'd never do it, even in civilian life. Not only is it against regulations, but many NCOs would take it as an insult.
Episode #1.1 - S1-E1
Factual error: Thomas' record says he received the King's Medal for Gallantry in the First World War. There was no such medal. It would have been the Military Medal.
Factual error: In the House of Commons, Tommy refers to an unseen Tory MP as "My Right Honourable Friend" and as "the member for Epping." The former address is only used for Privy Councillors of the speaker's own party (Tommy is a Labour MP); MPs of other parties would be "the Right Honourable Gentleman." Winston Churchill was MP for Epping at the time and Tommy's secretary later says Churchill is in America, so he can't possibly be addressing the member for Epping.
Factual error: Jessie Eden is described as a shop steward. A shop steward is the senior part-time trade union official in a particular workshop or department, who also has an ordinary job in that shop. Jessie appears to be a full-time official and covers a number of factories. She would actually be referred to as a trade union organiser.
Factual error: In series 1, Sergeant Moss says he and most of his men served in the First World War, but none of them wear any medal ribbons. In series 2, Moss has suddenly acquired three medal ribbons, but they seem to be made-up and are not relevant to the First World War. From series 3, Moss is wearing the correct three service ribbons for the First World War.
Episode #2.1 - S2-E1
Factual error: Season 2 covers 1921 to 1922. The car (YP8086) used in this episode was first registered 9th August 1926. (00:38:20 - 00:39:30)
Factual error: Chief Inspector Campbell has been sent from Belfast. Belfast at the time was policed by the Royal Irish Constabulary, which had no rank of chief inspector.
Factual error: The fact Colonel Younger is black and this may be an issue socially is implied several times (meaning the series acknowledges his ethnicity), but it never seems to be seen as surprising that a black man is a colonel in the British Army in the first place. While there were a small handful of mixed-race junior officers in the army in the First World War, there were no post-war black regular officers (it was actually against regulations at the time) and no black officer would hold such a senior rank until long after the Second World War.
Episode #2.2 - S2-E2
Factual error: Tommy's service record quoted by Churchill says that he served throughout the war with the Warwickshire Yeomanry. But we already know that he was a tunneller on the Western Front. The Warwickshire Yeomanry was a cavalry regiment (which actually served in Egypt, Gallipoli and Palestine and finally as a machine-gun battalion on the Western Front at the very end of the war). All tunnellers served with the Royal Engineers.
Factual error: The British Army had no female soldiers in the mid-1920s. Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps was disbanded in 1921 and no women served in the army from then until the formation of the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1938.
Episode #3.2 - S3-E2
Factual error: Patrick Jarvis mentions Tbilisi. Nobody in Britain would have called the city by that name in 1924; it was still always referred to as Tiflis.
Episode #1.4 - S1-E4
Factual error: When Freddy and Ada return to Birmingham from London they are seen on a boat called Kennet. This is a wide boat (i.e. almost twice the width of a 7 ft narrowboat) which could not have made its way from London to Birmingham in 1919/20 as all of the locks were narrow locks (7 ft) at that time.
Episode #3.3 - S3-E3
Factual error: Tommy refers to Istanbul. It was always still called Constantinople in the West at that time and would be for several more years.
Episode #3.4 - S3-E4
Factual error: John says that he has found plans in the British Library. It was only renamed the British Library in 1973. Before that it was called the British Museum Library (or commonly just the British Museum) and nobody called it the British Library.
Episode #1.4 - S1-E4
Factual error: In 1919 Chapman receives £200 from the Russian Embassy, but diplomatic relations were not established until 1924.
Episode #3.2 - S3-E2
Factual error: Father Hughes says that Admiral Hall may be detained in the House of Lords. Admiral Hall, although knighted, was never ennobled and thus did not sit in the House of Lords.
Episode #2.6 - S2-E6
Factual error: The field marshal is wearing a revolver to the Derby. British soldiers are only ever armed on duty, certainly not when attending social events. He also wears his Sam Browne outside his shoulder strap instead of beneath it; no officer would do this.
Answer: There has never been prohibition in England. There are many reasons for running an underground distillery. It would be a way to avoid things like government regulations, safe distilling methods, alcohol content limits, taxation, fix pricing, and so on.
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