Free exhibition on the city's links to transatlantic slave trade is coming to Manchester

A free exhibition detailing Manchester's links to the transatlantic slave trade will be coming to the city in two year's time. The displays at the Science and Industry Museum will feature new research and explore how the legacy of the trade continues to impact Manchester, the world, and lives today.

The presentation will be opening in early 2027 and run for a year at the museum on Liverpool Road. The museum was once part of the Liverpool Road Station where cotton produced by enslaved people overseas once flowed through. 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 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.

Sally MacDonald, director of the Science and Industry Museum said: “We have a unique opportunity to