SUNDAY is the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery - but it is only this year that Bolton schoolchildren will be taught about the evil trade in human beings.

Thanks to the efforts of three teachers and a grant to cover costs, children will be taught how Bolton grew rich on the back of the slave trade.

They will hear how Britain transported millions of African slaves around the world and how, after a sustained campaign, Britain later took a leading role in the abolition of the terrible trade.

Slavery has now been made part of the school curriculum as part of the Key Stage Three tests and from September, Bolton schools will have access to a newly created teachers' pack.

It has been well documented that the ports of Britain like Liverpool and Bristol made plenty of money from the slave trade but it is less well known that Lancashire cotton industry wealth relied on cotton produced by slaves.

There was opposition from some enlightened mill owners and from many Lancashire and Bolton weavers who, even though their livelihood depended on cheap cotton, took the view that slavery should be stopped at all costs.

Teachers Tom McCleery, John McHugh and Natalie Holmes have researched the issue of Bolton's relationship with slavery and have almost completed their special teachers' pack to be used in Bolton schools.

The resource pack is centred around fugitive slave James Watkins who lectured at meetings in the Bolton and Westhoughton areas and lived in the town for a few years.

A copy of his book, A Narrative of the life of James Watkins, which was printed in Bolton, is kept safe in the archives section of Bolton Library.

In his lectures, Watkins told rapt audiences how he escaped, after many attempts, from his Maryland plantation and had been pursued by dogs over many miles.

On one occasion, he was close to being caught by the dogs when he threw pepper over his tracks to help his escape.

The teachers will meet to decide what goes into the teachers' pack, though it will be centred around James Watkins against a background of Bolton's acquisition of wealth on the back of the worldwide trade in slaves.

Watkins was well known for a remarkable series of lectures at venues in and around the Bolton area.

He came to live in Bolton in about 1851, where he called for an end to slavery across the world.

Daniel Smith, curator of local history at Bolton Museum, said: "Watkins settled in Bolton for several years and wrote his memoirs describing his life as a slave, his escape attempts, his religious conversion and his work educating about slavery in the North-west and campaigning for abolition.

"The book was printed in Bolton and is dedicated to Elizabeth Abbatt junior from her friend, James Watkins' - presumably Elizabeth was the daughter of the printer.

"When the cotton industry in Lancashire went into its period of boom in the early 1800s, a parallel increase in cotton production was required on the slave plantations. This meant using more slaves.

"The Lancashire cotton industry was reliant on imports of the raw material, and an inconsistent supply periodically sent the industry into slumps affecting the whole community.

"The most famous of these was the cotton famine in the 1860s, brought about by the American Civil War.

"In spite of the hardships, however, many of the cotton workers in Lancashire still supported the Federal States."

Former Mayor of Bolton Cllr Frank White, who has studied the period, said: "Bolton textile workers refused to work with slave-picked cotton during the American Civil War so much so that some mills closed.

"The workers wrote in support to Abraham Lincoln and he wrote back to them thanking them for their help and recognising they suffered hardship.

"That's why there's a statue to Abraham Lincoln in Manchester and not London.

"The Bank Street Unitarians in Bolton were also very heavily involved in supporting the abolition of slavery."

There remains a plaster frieze which includes a black man, assumed to be Watkins, over a shop front in Market Street, Westhoughton, which is now a toy shop.

Bolton Museum received financial support from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to fund the development of a schools education pack on the subject of slavery and its connection to Bolton history.