Rebecca’s Children: A Study of Rural Society, Crime, and Protest

The year 1839 witnessed the first appearance in south-west Wales of Rebecca, the popular but mythical heroine, with her flowing robes and splenid white horse. Marking the anniversary of this colorful episode in modern British social history, this book employs a wealth of new documentary and statistical evidence to describe Rebecca’s children–the peasantry of Wales–and the hundreds of riots and illegal acts which they ccarried out in her name. Jones also sets the riots in the wider context of a changing rural society, examining the economy, poverty, family life, popular culture, social attitudes, crime, and politics of mid-nineteenth-century Wales.