Scotch Cattle

They were featured in Alexander Cordell's book, set in this era, Rape of the Fair Country against a backdrop of the Newport Rising of 1839, Chartism and militancy in the South Wales Valleys of the mid 19th century.

Composed of as many as 300 men and led by a "Bull", the Herd would in most cases have been called in from a neighbouring town, to eliminate the possibility that the target might identify and report one of its members.

After announcing their presence by blowing on horns and rattling chains, the Herd members would smash the house's doors, windows, and furniture and burn fabric items in a bonfire.

Firearms were used on occasion, but usually without serious effect; in one incident in 1834, however, a miner's wife was killed by a visiting Herd, a crime for which one man, Edward Morgan, was later executed and two imprisoned.

[citation needed] A more recent historian has argued that the activities of the Scotch Cattle represent an application of pre-industrial methods of rural community discipline or charivari to an untried industrial context, where such techniques eventually proved unsustainable.