Who Do You Think You Are? BBC releases trailer for 17th series

In an upcoming episode of the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are? Lesley Manville learns her great-great-great grandfather faced the death penalty.

The 67-year-old actress, who portrays Princess Margaret in the Netflix series The Crown discovered her great-great-grandfather Aaron Harding was an anti-establishment rebel ringleader who was involved in a violent revolt.

The father-of-nine was part of the Swing Riots of 1830 and he ended up being transported to Australia for his sentence.

Lesley said of the discovery: “It’s churning up a lot of stuff inside me that he was this poor man who just knew the difference between right and wrong, and being – to use a modern phrase – ripped off.”

The World On Fire actress concluded: “He sounds like such a fantastic character.”

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Aaron and his brother Thomas were among hundreds of labourers who destroyed properties and attacked machinery to protest falling wages and rising taxes.

They were arrested for being part of a 300-strong mob and faced the death penalty which was still in force at the time.

However, they were found not guilty of one workhouse attack by a jury because there was no evidence to suggest they had set out to destroy the property.

But the two brothers were found guilty of a second attack on a Hampshire workhouse.

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Aaron, who was 41 at the time, had to endure four months at sea before arriving in Sydney, Australia, on June 26, 1831.

During the episode of the BBC show, Lesley travels Down Under to meet distant relatives she never knew existed.

The British Government granted pardons to the vast majority of Swing Rioters in 1836 in the face of public pressure.

However, Aaron ended up falling in love with a married local woman in Australia and they started a family together before he died in 1851.

Lesley was amazed by her family’s roots but claimed she had no interest in bringing anyone romantically into her life.

Actor Gary Oldman is her ex-husband, but he left her for Uma Thurman when their son Alfie was just three years old.

She remarried actor Joe Dixon in 2000 but they divorced four years later.

The star said she’s happy being single as she does not have to think about anyone else.

Lesley Manville’s Who Do You Think You Are? episode airs on July 27 at 9pm on BBC One.

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