Science Museum Group © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
What do you hope the main outcomes of the exhibition and wider project are?
Sally
I’m really excited about what this project and exhibition can do for future visitors to the museum and more widely for people in Manchester. I think in the past we’ve perhaps lacked the confidence to tell stories like these about Manchester’s industrial past. But the opportunity to work with the Guardian and The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme team, and an amazing network of people both regionally and internationally, gives us the chance to explore areas we couldn’t do justice to otherwise. I’d like us to create not just a ground-breaking exhibition, but great new permanent displays and learning resources for schools for the long term.
Keisha
I would like this exhibition to invite people into a fuller understanding of the Manchester story. We are known as the Cotton Capital but do we really understand what that means? We were one of the first industrial cities in the world. We can be proud of this city but we have to understand what sacrifices were made to make it into the beautiful place that it is now. We have to address the true labour of people from across the world that allowed us to become a global driving force.
Science Museum Group Collection © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Why is it important?
Keisha
Both organisations are aligned in wanting to use our resources to impact people from African descendent communities. The Guardian/Scott Trust has a strategy for restorative justice based on the research we did into our history. We were founded in Manchester with strong links to the cotton trade. The Science and Industry Museum have been doing excellent work in shedding light on the cotton trade, most recently with their Global Threads project. Thus, we know we can work together to raise consciousness and create space for change in the city.
Sally
There are so many reasons why it’s important. Research has shown that the public places a lot of trust in museums, still, to present history truthfully. That places a big responsibility on us to question and update our narratives and frankly we haven’t always been that good at it. We’re a museum about ideas that change the world, and we have to be honest that some of the innovations that Manchester’s so famous for came at a massive cost, whether that was for the mill workers here or for the enslaved people who picked the cotton that fed those mills. This project will present powerful and empowering stories as yet untold, and perhaps inspire further research and discoveries.
Science Museum Group Collection © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
What has struck you so far from any of the early research and emerging themes?
Sally
I think the main thing for me is just how fundamental this subject is to the museum’s collections and the stories we tell. When the Science and Industry Museum was being set up, many of the earliest collections came from cotton mills and the story of cotton manufacture has always been central in the displays. Not only that, the museum is housed on the site of the terminus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Several of the railway’s key founders and investors were merchants whose wealth derived from their involvement in the slave trade. So it’s vital that we’re able to tell that story for our visitors.
Keisha
My understanding of how the various boroughs across Greater Manchester were linked to the expansion of the cotton trade and its abolition. Our nuanced relationship with Liverpool. Our relationship with the US—their trade, politics and process for abolition. And our relationship with Brazil, which was the biggest importer of enslaved people and did not abolish enslavement until 1888.
Science Museum Group Collection © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
What part of the development process are you looking forward to the most?
Keisha
Working with the new project curator, advisory panel and collaborators circle. I can’t wait to get out there. I want to engage with people. I want to see the impact of sharing stories and building a broader understanding of this city across generations and across all the boroughs.
It’s going to be tough when the various groups will have to decide what content will be chosen with the final exhibition. One of my heroes, Amiri Baraka, said, ‘The landscape should belong to the people who see it all the time.’ I know that by having the right voices involved in the decision making, we will create something that is truly representative.
Sally
The most exciting thing for me is the chance to collaborate with researchers and communities not just in Manchester but nationally and internationally to help us tell new stories in ways I probably can’t imagine right now. I always love the ideas generation part of a project! The really difficult bit will come in editing down a wealth of stories into a group of objects, archives and stories that come together to make a really great exhibition.
Science Museum Group © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
What does this project mean to you on a personal level?
Sally
Growing up in Manchester and studying history at school, this was a set of stories I was never told, and I so wish I had been. I’m going to learn a massive amount from this project, and the museum will too. I don’t mean ‘facts’ about the past (though I’m sure there’ll be plenty of that!), but about how to better reflect the city through the stories we tell, the ways we work, who we work with and who we employ. I’m excited for how this can change us for the better.
Keisha
I am a Manc with Jamaican, Guyanese and Portuguese heritage. This story is directly linked to me. I am grateful that I went to a primary school that allowed me to understand the history of this city and its links to enslavement from a very young age. It has instilled in me a great sense of belonging, understanding, pride, critique and a passion for justice.
I want people in this city to tap into our local history and allow it to give them a greater sense of belonging and respect for others. We are a city of change-makers. I know that telling this full story will inspire more of us to shape this city in a way that makes it a more equitable place.
A major free exhibition revealing the links between Manchester, cotton and transatlantic slavery will open at the Science and Industry Museum in 2027, in partnership with the Guardian and the Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme.
Developed with African descendant 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.
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.
Further reading
Our work to explore Manchester, cotton and slavery | Science and Industry Museum
Manchester, cotton and slavery | Science and Industry Museum
Legacies of enslavement | The Guardian
Cotton Capital: a special investigation 2023 | The Guardian
