This project was a collaboration between the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes and North Yorkshire Record Office to research people and places of the Yorkshire Dales connected with Africa, the Caribbean and India. 'Hidden History' collected local stories of slave owners and traders, abolitionists, Africans and Asians who moved to the Dales, and others like the actor Ira Aldridge who passed through. The project included various community activities. Working with actor Joe Williams, pupils from the Wensleydale School explored the life of Olaudah Equiano and performed alongside Joe at the exhibition opening. There were drop-in sessions on exploring family history, carnival costume making, talks and music. The exhibition toured to other locations in Yorkshire, including Boroughbridge Library. The Dales Countryside Museum has continued to collect information relating to individuals who were connected with the Yorkshire Dales and the wider world.

Kirklees Council ran a range of events in 2007, focused on local connections with slavery and abolition. Kirklees Civic Sunday was the official commemoration at Huddersfield Parish Church, with a performance by a local gospel choir and a presentation by actors as historical characters. The links between Yorkshire and the Caribbean were also explored: 8,500 people of African-Caribbean descent live in the borough of Kirklees. Events such as the Jamaica National Independence Cultural Festival, Deighton Carnival and Huddersfield Carnival celebrated African and Caribbean culture. Part of the Kirklees programme was to host the Equiano Project's touring exhibition at the Hudawi Centre in Huddersfield. The Centre went on to name one of its rooms after Equiano. Other events included talks from historians, including Richard Reddie and Paul Crooke, church services, choir concerts and theatre productions.

The Inhuman Traffic project was led by Gloucestershire Archives, in partnership with the Set All Free initiative. The virtual exhibition and accompanying web resource were based on documents held at Gloucestershire Archives and, in particular, the papers of the anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp (1735-1813). The exhibition explored topics such as the contribution of black people to the abolition movement, aspects of the legacies of slavery, including racism and domestic violence. Over 400 copies of the exhibition DVD were sent to schools, churches, tourist information venues and individuals across Gloucestershire. The associated programme of events included performances of the play 'Inhuman Traffic', developed in collaboration with a local theatre company, Spaniel in the Works. The play features four interacting characters with different perspectives on slavery. A cross-curricular teaching resource was later developed, which included a second performance, 'Master and Slave', in partnership with Stroud District Museums Service, Spaniel in the Works, and Parliament Primary School, Stroud.

This exhibition and booklet were produced as part of South Gloucestershire's Engage 2007 project, in partnership with Yate and District Heritage Centre. Both the exhibition and booklet explored local connections with the history of slavery and anti-slavery in South Gloucestershire. Links identified included the career of Robert Jenkinson of Hawkesbury (later Prime Minister Lord Liverpool), the Caribbean plantations of the Codrington family, the campaign efforts of abolitionist Joseph Sturge and, looking further back in history, St Wulfstan's attempts to abolish the trade in slaves to Ireland in the 11th century. The booklet was written and edited by Lorna Brooks and David Hardill. The exhibition toured the local area, including Thornbury and District Museum, pictured here.

Leeds-born businessman Richard Oastler was a leading figure in the 19th century campaign to end child slavery in the factories and mills of Yorkshire. The University of Huddersfield Archives, West Yorkshire Archives, Huddersfield Local History Library and Kirklees Museums and Galleries hold significant sources relating to the Huddersfield centred campaign against 'Yorkshire Slavery'. This project devised an exhibition ('The Past and Present of the Slave Trade') and heritage trail, and ran workshops for school children, local societies and youth theatres. A conference was held, and the University of Huddersfield Press later published John A. Hargreaves and E. A. Hilary Haigh, 'Slavery in Yorkshire: Richard Oastler and the campaign against child labour in the Industrial Revolution' (2012).

A touring exhibition from Herefordshire Museums, which explored Herefordshire's hidden history of slavery. Local connections include Moccas Court near Hereford, the country house once home to the Cornewall family, owners of a sugar plantation on Grenada at the time of the Grenadian uprising of 1795. Another county connection to the history of slavery is Lady Hawkins' School in Kington, the construction of which was bequeathed in 1632 by the widow of Sir John Hawkins, England's first slave trader. The nineteenth-century poet and abolitionist Elizabeth Barrett Browning also had family connections in Herefordshire. The exhibition was taken on tour around Herefordshire and Warwickshire on a specially commissioned Abolition Bus.

In collaboration with the Peterborough branch of the African Caribbean Forum, Peterborough Museum hosted 'Beyond the Bicentennial, 1788-1838: Exploring 50 Years of the Slave Trade'. The exhibition's focus was the fifty years leading up to the end of slavery in the British Empire, 1833. It highlighted museum objects and local connections to the era of abolition, including black communities in Peterborough and links between slave-produced sugar and the rise of tea drinking in Georgian Britain. Two special event days included Georgian period re-enactors, historical talks on slavery, African drumming workshops, African food tasting and community displays.

George John Scipio Africanus (1763-1834) was Nottingham's first recorded black entrepreneur, starting an employment agency called the 'Africanus Register of Servants'. As a child, Africanus was brought to England from Sierra Leone and given as a present to wealthy Wolverhampton businessman Benjamin Molineux. He then moved to Nottingham and became a freeholder. Nottinghamshire Archives and MLA East Midlands produced web resources for teachers and learners based on the life of George Africanus. An exhibition toured venues around the city, including Nottingham Council House and Brewhouse Yard. On 25 March 2007, as part of the bicentenary events in Nottingham, a service was held at St Mary's Church led by the Bishop of Kingston (Jamaica), the Rt Revd Robert Thompson. A new memorial stone was dedicated to Africanus, and a plaque unveiled commemorating his life.

Myrtilla’s Trail was developed at Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum in partnership with poet Brenda Tai Layton, using objects, images and texts to explore local links with the slave trade. Myrtilla, 'Negro slave to Mr Tho. Beauchamp', is buried in the village of Oxhill in Warwickshire. Apart from her gravestone (dated 1705), she remains anonymous. Warwick District has connections with slave owners, such as the Greatheed family of Guy's Cliffe, sugar plantation owners in St Christopher (St Kitts). This trail around the galleries offered a starting point for exploring these complex and often hidden histories, including busts and documents of the Greatheed family, abolitionist coins, protest songs, and travel posters.

Alongside commemorating the passing of the 1807 Abolition Act, the ‘William Wilberforce, Slavery and the East Riding’ exhibition at the Treasure House in Beverley also highlighted Wilberforce’s connections with the East Riding of Yorkshire. The exhibition traced the roots of the Wilberforce family back to the early 13th century, and narrated the story of William Wilberforce’s early life in a family of merchants, and later, his significant contributions to the abolition campaign. It also looked at the other links between the East Riding and slavery, in the family fortunes of the Beverley family and Watt family, founded on ownership of slave plantations, but also the anti-slavery societies established in the region. The exhibition ended by highlighting the plight of the millions of people still enslaved across the world today, and discussed some of the contemporary antislavery efforts.

Wilberforce House Museum re-opened in 2007 after a significant redevelopment. In 1907 the 17th century building, and William Wilberforce’s birthplace and home in Hull’s Old Town, became Britain's first museum of the history of slavery. In 2007, the museum was fully refurbished with new displays. Some of these showcased existing collections, including those relating to the life of their famous patron, the slave trade and plantation life. Other displays engaged with themes considered absent from former interpretations, including the wider abolition movement. Another significant new feature was the inclusion of two galleries relating to modern slavery and human rights. These exhibits drew attention to local and global issues, with objects donated by members of the local community and contemporary antislavery campaign groups.

Part of Wilberforce 2007, the Walking with Wilberforce Heritage Trail is a journey through Hull's Old Town, via twelve important landmarks related to William Wilberforce and the theme of freedom. Along the trail is the Humanitarian Wall, at the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, constructed in 2006 to commemorate worldwide actions for human rights and justice. The ceramic markers, inspired by the Sankofa bird, were designed especially for the trail by three community and art groups from Hull's Africa Forum, from Hull College ceramic students and from local schools working in collaboration with two local ceramic artists. The trail was launched with a celebration of African culture led by students from Hull schools and the local Congolese community.

York Castle Museum's Unfair Trade exhibition used the museum's collections to explore slavery from the viewpoint of ordinary people, and how consumption of slave-produced everyday commodities - sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa - contributed to the slave trade. It also looked at the part played by York in the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, with the many Quakers of the city supporting William Wilberforce and helping to finance his election campaign. The exhibition continued the focus on consumption into modern life by asking visitors to consider where the products they buy come from. York Castle Museum features a recreated Victorian street, Kirkgate, with its own newspaper, 'The Kirkgate Examiner'. A special edition was distributed to coincide with the exhibition.

A bust of Sir Henry Tate, one of the most prominent philanthropists of the 19th century, is displayed on a plinth in Brixton. A group of young men from the ORIGIN Rites of Passage Programme produced a documentary to investigate Tate's legacy and, in particular, the tensions inherent in his acts of generosity being funded by wealth derived from sugar production. The documentary featured interviews, research, and trips to Tate & Lyle plants and buildings. New Initiatives, a youth and community association, developed ORIGIN as an Africentric rites of passage programme, to support young men of African descent in their transition to adulthood. The project, exhibition and DVD was launched at Brixton Tate Library in October 2010.

Liverpool hosted a city-wide programme of activities and projects to commemorate the bicentenary, as part of events to mark the city's 800th birthday. The events aimed to celebrate the African Diaspora and support works by artists of African descent. They included: LEAP, an annual contemporary dance festival featuring African dance companies; a performance of Mighty Diamonds - Reggae Legends at the Philharmonic Hall; the Roscoe Lectures; the Brouhaha International Carnival, celebrating resistance, rebellion and abolition; the Africa Oyé Music Festival at Sefton Park; the Bound exhibition at Open Eye Gallery, showing works representing personal perspectives on the physical and psychological impact of slavery on humanity; and many other lectures and debates. There was also a slavery trail around the city.

As made clear by The Long Road to Freedom exhibition in 2007, the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland contains a significant collection of documents which reveal local connections with the slave trade, and with those who campaigned for abolition. Several prominent local families owned slaves on plantations in the Caribbean and on the north coast of South America. Leading Leicester abolitionists, Elizabeth Heyrick and Susanna Watts, orchestrated a vigorous anti-slavery campaign in Leicester, including a boycott on sugar. Local landowner, Thomas Babington of Rothley Temple, was a friend of William Wilberforce and hosted meetings of anti-slavery campaigners at his home. The exhibition also highlighted a unique collection of mid-19th century papers which provide access to the voices of the enslaved in a slave court in Lagos, West Africa. It also told the stories of two former slaves, Rasselas Morjan and Edward Juba, who came to Leicestershire with their owners. This exhibition toured to various venues in the region, including Abbey Pumping Station, where it coincided with family activities focused on the work of Elizabeth Heyrick.

A guide to bicentenary activities and events in museums, archives and other venues across the East Midlands - Leicestershire and Rutland, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire - was produced by Museums, Libraries and Archives East Midlands and Renaissance East Midlands. These events commemorated local connections to the abolitionist movement and to slavery. For example, Manor House Museum in Kettering produced a loans box containing material on William Knibb, a local abolitionist. Rothwell Arts and Heritage Centre produced an exhibition on the life of Rothwell-born missionary John Smith. Derby City Museums and Gallery worked with an artist and young people to explore Derby's industrial heritage and its links to the slave trade using The Silk Mill, Derby's Museum of Industry and History, as inspiration. Chesterfield Local Studies put together a touring exhibition to explore Derbyshire connections to the slave trade. A community commemorative event organised by Lincolnshire County Council and Lincolnshire African and Caribbean Support Group included a service of remembrance and the release of 200 'Freedom' balloons from Lincoln City Square on 24 March 2007.

A commemorative event to mark the bicentenary in Rothley, Leicestershire, was organised by a planning group of Rothley Parish Church and the Committee of the Rothley History Society. The event on 25 March 2007 launched a new book by Terry Sheppard and Iain Whyte, ‘Rothley and the Abolition of the Slave Trade’, which explored the ‘mutual endeavours’ of Thomas Babington, Thomas Gisborne, William Wilberforce and Zachary Macaulay. These men were linked though family and university connections, and their involvement in the campaign to abolish the slave trade. Many of their meetings took place at Babington’s home, Rothley Temple, now known as the Rothley Court Hotel, where the event in 2007 was held.

The day included dramatic readings from 18th century documents relating to the campaign for abolition, an exhibition of panels from Anti-Slavery International, an interview with a descendant of Thomas Babington, and a choir concert from the Kainé Gospel Choir. In collaboration with Charnwood Borough Council, a new plaque was unveiled to remember the suffering of African people and the part played in ending the trade by Babington, Wilberforce and others. In December 2007, the planning group invited organisations in Rothley and Leicester to submit items contemporary to 2007 to be placed in a time capsule, to be laid up at the court until the tricentenary in 2107. The oak casket sits behind glass in a niche at the hotel.

The Diverse Stories project began in 2007 with participants from Malcolm X Elders, an Afro Caribbean elders and community group in Bristol, taking part in a creative writing project to mark the bicentenary. This was jointly supported by Show of Strength Theatre Company, Our Stories Make Waves and English Heritage. Participants visited the ruined Temple Church in Bristol and explored its links with the slave trade and abolition movement. Their responses included a range of dramatic monologues covering themes such as slavery, racism, trade, childhood memories of Jamaica and migration from the Caribbean. These were read at a performance by a professional actor. In 2008 the project was given a permanent record by a selection of the stories being recorded on audio CD.

Norfolk’s Hidden Heritage was a partnership project between the Norwich and Norfolk Racial Equality Council (NNREC), the Norfolk Record Office (NRO) and the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service (NMAS) which researched the links between Norfolk and transatlantic slavery. For example, many slaving voyages left England from King's Lynn, while the Dalling family of Norfolk owned the Donnington Castle plantation in Jamaica. The exhibition, curated by Norfolk Record Office, won an award for the Best Black History Project for the East of England from the Black History Society. The website provided an interactive timeline to trace Norfolk’s Hidden Heritage from 1670 to today. There was also a database to search for important people, places and dates. Workshops were run in a number of schools, and information packs distributed. More widely, the project worked with the University of East Anglia, Norwich City College, the Prison Service and the Youth Offending Team. As part of the project, Norwich Academy Drama Group put together the production 'Diary of a Son of Africa', about an enslaved African who eventually gained his freedom.