Rebecca’s Daughters

The Rebecca riots took place in the rural parts of west Wales, including Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire, and Carmarthenshire, around 1839-1843.
Based on a script that Dylan Thomas wrote for Gainsborough Pictures in 1948, “Rebecca’s Daughters” explores the tension between the working and ruling classes in 19th century Wales. Young aristocrat Anthony Raine returns home from India to find the farmers of Pembrokeshire protesting about the rates of a tollgate run by something called “The Whitman Turnpike Trust”, headed by the drunken Lord Sarn (Peter O’Toole). So Raine dresses up as a woman, calls himself Rebecca, and leads the common people to victory over their masters.