THE sacrifices made by Lancashire's textile workers to support the abolition of slavery will be remembered in a travelling exhibition.

The anti-slavery exhibition will be on show at Rawtenstall Library from January 9 to 15 and then, until January 23, at Rawtenstall's youth centre in the Old Fire Station in Burnley Road, before spending the rest of the year touring Lancashire.

The exhibition aims to raise awareness about the hunger and unemployment suffered by Lancashire workers in backing a blockade of Confederacy ports and thereby starving Lancashire's mills of cotton.

The exhibition will mark 200 years since the Abolition of Slavery Act. Slavery actually continues as a trade in some countries.

Organiser Brenda Lynton-Escreet said: "Lancashire's link to the trade was textiles as cotton was grown in the pro-slavery south of the USA.

"Abraham Lincoln wrote a thank-you letter to the cotton workers of England to thank them for their sacrifices.

"They put their jobs at risk and suffered hardship in all sorts of ways."

Guests at the exhibition will be asked to sign a book which will then be handed to international campaigners against modern-day slavery.

For more information, contact Brenda on 01772 532786 or at brenda.lynton-escreet@ed.lancscc.gov.uk