page_title: Rebecca Riots
section_title: The riots
hierarchical_section_title: Rebecca Riots / History / The riots
caption_attribution_description: Aberystwyth Southgate Tollhouse, now located at St Fagan's National History Museum, Cardiff
context_page_description: The Rebecca Riots took place between 1839 and 1843 in West and Mid Wales. They were a series of protests undertaken by local farmers and agricultural workers in response to perceived unfair taxation. The rioters, often men dressed as women, took their actions against toll-gates, as they were tangible representations of high taxes and tolls. The riots ceased prior to 1844 due to several factors, including increased troop levels, a desire by the protestors to avoid violence and the appearance of criminal groups using the guise of the biblical character Rebecca for their own purposes. In 1844 a Parliamentary act to consolidate and amend the laws relating to turnpike trusts in Wales was passed.
context_section_description: The Rebecca Riots are often mistaken as a response solely against the toll gates, ignoring the other factors affecting the Welsh farming communities of the time. The main reason for the choice of toll gates as targets for Rebecca, was that the booths and gates were tangible representations of the system they so despised. The only other options for the rioters would be the union workhouses, as the Poor Law was as hated as the toll roads; but these could be easily defended and were often garrisoned by troops.
  The first protests led by "Rebecca" destroyed the toll-gates at Yr Efail Wen in two attacks in Carmarthenshire in 1839. These were believed to be led by Twm, though he  did not appear to participate in further riots when the attacks flared again three years later. Other communities later adopted the name and disguise, and other grievances besides the toll gates were aired in the riots. Anglican clergymen from the established Church of England (now the disestablished Church in Wales) were targets on several occasions. The Church of England could demand tithes and other ecclesiastical benefits even though most of the population of Wales were Nonconformists. Other victims were petty local villains such as the fathers of illegitimate children.
  The next time the Rebeccas assembled was roughly three years later, when Tom Bullin was allowed to raise a tollgate by the Mermaid Tavern near St Clears. This was an obvious 'trap' side-bar, and angered the locals, who destroyed it and two other gates. Other tollgates to be target included the Bolgoed tollgate on the outskirts of Pontarddulais. On 6 July 1843 the Bolgoed tollgate was attacked and destroyed by a group of some 200 men. In mid-July 1843, letters were sent from representatives of the Rebeccas, targeting the landlords of farmers. These threatening letters warned the landlords to make reductions in the rent of their tenant farmers. The summer of 1843 also saw farmers conducting open meetings demanding a lowering of rent by at least a third. The threats came to little and the meetings had no effect, and the rents remained the same, though by August farmers had changed tactics to calling for an independent assessment of the regulations of rents.
  The riots caused at least one fatality, in the small village of Hendy on 7 September 1843, in which a young woman and gate keeper named Sarah Williams died. She had been warned beforehand that the rioters were on their way but refused to leave. On the night of her death she could be heard shouting "I know who you are" by a family living up the road who had locked their doors from the rioters. Williams called for help at the house of John Thomas, a labourer, to extinguish a fire at the toll gate, but when she returned to the toll house, a shot was heard. Williams returned to the house of John Thomas, and collapsed at the threshold of the house. Two minutes later she was dead.
  From August 1843, local and open protest meetings were taking the place of riots. Partly due to the farmers scaling back on violent activity, and also due to the increasing presence of troop numbers. Another major factor that saw the riots reduce were the activities of a group of petty criminals masquerading as Rebecca operating from Five Roads near Llanelli. This group, led by known trouble-maker John Jones (Shoni Sguborfawr) and his associate David Davies (Dai'r Cantwr), who were eventually convicted and transported to Australia, turned more respectable people away from Rebecca. Jones, unlike Davies, was not convicted of crimes during the riots, but for a later assault charge.
caption: Aberystwyth Southgate Tollhouse, now at St Fagans National Museum of History
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