Rebecca Riots

The Rebecca Riots took place between 1839 and 1843 in South 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 Rebecca for their own purposes. In 1844 a Parliamentary act to consolidate and amend the laws relating to turnpike trusts in Wales was passed.

In the late 1830s and early 1840s, the agricultural communities of south Wales were in dire poverty. In 1837 and 1838 the whole country suffered from poor harvests, worse in the south west, where atrocious seasons of rain forced farmers to buy corn at famine prices to feed themselves, their animals and their families, which further eroded what little capital they had. Grain harvests collapsed, but the price of butter between 1837 and 1841, and sheep between 1839 and 1841, was relatively high, and even the low cattle prices of 1839 recovered by 1841. But by 1842 a general fall in prices occurred throughout the agricultural markets that continued into 1843. Cattle prices slumped sharply in 1842, and the blame was placed on the Government, and in particular Robert Peel's tariff measures which eased importation of foreign cattle and meat. In 1842, the harvest was one of the most successful in years, and that, combined with the contraction in demand from the Glamorgan ironworks, led to a slump in corn prices. The farmers' economic position had therefore shifted from that of dire grain harvests with life supported by sheep and butter sales, to one where the price of their corn, when the weather was favourable, was very low. The diminution of the Glamorgan ironworks, coupled with the new tariff, also had an adverse effect on the prices of butter, cheese, pigs, horses, sheep and lean cattle, impacting harshly on the Welsh pastoral farmer.

The farmers were faced with a drastic reduction in their income, but had no financial relief in similar reductions in their outgoings, mainly rents, tithes, county rates, poor rates and the turnpike tolls. Farm rents stayed mainly static, but the tithes, tolls and poor rates increased. Seeing themselves as victims of 'tyranny and oppression', the farmers and their workers took the law into their own hands to rid themselves of these unjust taxes. The first institutions to be attacked were the hated toll-gates.

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