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Major free new exhibition to reveal the links between Manchester, cotton and transatlantic slavery

Major free new exhibition to reveal the links between Manchester, cotton and transatlantic slavery at the Science and Industry Museum, in partnership with the Guardian and The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme.

The Science and Industry Museum tells the story of the ideas and innovations that transformed Manchester into the world's first industrial city and beyond. Now, a landmark free exhibition and public engagement project will reveal how transatlantic slavery shaped the city's growth. Featuring new research, it will also explore how the legacies of these histories continue to impact Manchester, the world, and lives today.

Produced by the Science and Industry Museum in partnership with The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme and developed with African descendent and diaspora communities through local and global collaborations, the project will put the city's historic connections to enslavement at the heart of a major exhibition at the museum for the first time.    

Opening in early 2027, the exhibition will run for a year in the Science and Industry Museum's Special Exhibitions Gallery. Formerly part of Liverpool Road Station, cotton produced by enslaved people once flowed through the historic railway site now occupied by the museum.  

The project will have a collaborative city-wide events programme and a lasting legacy, with a new permanent schools programme and permanent displays in the future.

The exhibition was announced last night at an event in Manchester by Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, in conversation with Joshi Herrmann, founder of The Mill, where they discussed the history of the Guardian, which was established in Manchester, and its founders’ links to transatlantic slavery.

The work is part of The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme, a 10-year restorative justice project launched in 2023. Through partnerships and community programmes, the project aims to improve public understanding of the impact of transatlantic slavery on the UK's economic development, and its ongoing legacies for Black communities—with a strong focus on Manchester, the city in which the Guardian was founded.

It will develop the museum's existing gallery content and ongoing and growing work around researching and sharing the inextricable links between Manchester's growth into an industrial powerhouse and a textile industry reliant on colonialism and enslavement.  

The exhibition will share a more inclusive history of a city that prides itself on being at the forefront of ideas that change the world through a collaborative re-examination of the past.

Sally MacDonald, Director of the Science and Industry Museum says:

'We have a unique opportunity to create an exhibition which delivers a powerful story about our shared history and its legacies, delivered with research input and support from The Scott Trust, who are responding to their own organisation's historic connections to enslavement. This will be an exhibition about important aspects of our past that are profoundly relevant to the world we live in today.  

'Revealed from the perspectives of those who experienced enslavement and whose lives have been shaped by its legacies, we will foreground stories of resistance, agency and skill. The exhibition will explore themes of resilience, identity and creativity alongside exploitation and inequality, and will feature a specific focus on the ways that scientific and technological developments both drove and were driven by transatlantic slavery.'

Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief, Guardian News & Media says:

'Many of the Guardian's 19th century founders profited from transatlantic enslavement, principally through Manchester's role in the cotton industry. A fundamental part of our restorative justice work in response is focused on the region and our aim is to build greater awareness and a deeper understanding of the city's historical links to transatlantic enslavement. This partnership with the Science and Industry Museum will combine knowledge and experience of Manchester with thoughtful collaboration that will be vital to serve the communities most impacted by these lasting legacies. We are announcing two years before launch so that we can work with the city's communities—particularly those of Caribbean and African descent—to shape the exhibition.'

Further detail on the project will be announced in due course. Follow the Science and Industry Museum and The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme webpages to stay updated or contact cottonandenslavement@scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk for more information on how to get involved in the project.

Notes to editors

About the Science and Industry Museum

The Science and Industry Museum tells the story of where science met industry and the modern world began. Manchester was one of the first global industrial cities, and its epic rise, decline and resurrection has been echoed in countless other cities around the world.  The museum's mission is to inspire all its visitors, including future scientists and inventors, with the story of how ideas can change the world, from the industrial revolution to today and beyond.   

The Science and Industry Museum site is on the site of the Liverpool Road Station terminus of the Liverpool Manchester Railway, the world's first purpose-built passenger railway. Among its internationally significant buildings are the world's first passenger railway station and the oldest existing railway goods warehouse. In total there are two Grade I listed buildings and four Grade II listed buildings on the site.  

The museum is currently undergoing a multi-million-pound regeneration project that will see brand new spaces opened and significant improvements made to some of its best-loved galleries.  

The Science and Industry Museum is part of the Science Museum Group, a family of museums which also includes the Science Museum in London; the National Railway Museum in York and Shildon; and the Science and Media Museum in Bradford. The Science Museum Group is devoted to the history and contemporary practice of science, medicine, technology, industry and media. With five million visitors each year and an unrivalled collection, it is the most significant group of museums of science and innovation worldwide.

About Manchester, cotton and transatlantic slavery at the museum

The museum's ongoing and growing work around researching and sharing histories of Manchester, cotton and transatlantic slavery includes the Global Threads public history collaboration between the museum, UCL's Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, and a team of young researchers, and the Cotton Connections community engagement project. New research will also enable the museum to present new narratives around the historic railway site, Liverpool Road Station, which the museum now occupies.

Manchester, cotton and slavery | Science and Industry Museum

About the Scott Trust

The ultimate owner of the Guardian is the Scott Trust, which was originally created as a trust in 1936 to safeguard the title's journalistic freedom. In 2008 it was replaced by a limited company with the same core purpose as the original trust: to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity, while its subsidiary aims are to champion its principles and to promote freedom of the press in the UK and elsewhere. Other than to cover expenses, the Scott Trust takes no dividend from the Group's businesses, whose profits are instead reinvested to sustain journalism that is free from commercial or political interference.

About the Legacies of Enslavement project

In March 2023, the Scott Trust published a comprehensive report on the Guardian’s historical connections with transatlantic slavery, sharing an apology for the role the newspaper’s founders had in this crime against humanity, and announcing a 10-year restorative justice response. At the same time, it launched Cotton Capital, the Guardian's ongoing journalism series, which continues to explore wider themes around transatlantic slavery and how it has changed Manchester, Britain and the world.

Since the launch of the programme, the Legacies of Enslavement team have been conducting descendant community engagement in Jamaica and the Sea Islands region of the US; expanding the Guardian's ability to reflect stories and issues of importance to communities of African descent globally through new correspondent roles and the Long Wave newsletter; and building relationships with institutional, civil society and community actors contributing to restorative and reparatory justice efforts globally. Our research partnership with the University of Hull's Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation is ongoing with more reports on the Guardian’s history to be shared in 2025.