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Home Trinity History Newsletter Junior Church Holiday Club What's On Set All Free 
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The bi-centenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade inspired a three-day Set All Free festival at Trinity. The festival was the culmination of eight months’ planning and featured floral displays by the members of the church’s flower guild, together with an exhibition of work by the children of Cheadle Primary School where, in partnership with the church, the bi-centenary had been for the focus for a cross-curricular theme week. | |||||
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The festival was opened by the Mayor of Stockport who planted a commemorative tree in the church grounds, assisted by children from Cheadle Primary, and in her opening remarks referred to contemporary suffering endured by children in sweatshops. Balloons were also ‘set free’ around the tree by Cheadle Primary school children. The festival programme also included a concert by The Laurence Singers and a Caribbean Supper. | |||||
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The Sunday evening worship served as the festival climax with a Celebration Service also attended by local United Reformed, Methodist, Anglican and Roman Catholic congregations, together with the Mayor of Stockport and local Lib-Dem MP, Mark Hunter. | |||||
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The preacher was Revd. Dr. John Campbell, Principal of Northern College, Manchester who used the cause of the Abolitionists as a challenge to how we use and apply the Bible. Dr. Campbell was accompanied by Delroy Brown, an actor and member at South Aston URC, Birmingham, who enacted the part of black abolitionist Olaudah Equiano and made worshippers feel suitably uncomfortable! | |||||
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The service included the reading of a set of 18th Century texts: a local Methodist minister, Revd. Richard Lowson, read an excerpt from Wesley’s ‘Thoughts Upon Slavery’; a church member read a Quaker petition presented to Parliament almost a quarter of century before the Act; Mark Hunter, MP for Cheadle, read part of Wilberforce’s speech in Parliament. | |||||
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The festival attracted good support from school families as well as local churches and community and raised the profile of the challenge to help shape a world where all are free. Over £1000 was raised for Christian Aid and a further £450 for Trinity. The personal relevance of this episode of history was summed up by a member at Trinity saying that she had discovered recently on the gravestone of a relative that she was a descendant of a slave owner herself. | |||||
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Photograph: (group) left to right: Delroy Brown (South Aston URC, Birmingham), Dr. John Campbell (Principal, Northern College, Manchester), Revd. Margaret Tait (Gatley URC), Mark Hunter (MP for Cheadle), Cllr. June Somekh (Mayor of Stockport), Cllr. Pam King (Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council), Revd. Canon John Gordon (St. Chad’s RC, Cheadle) & Revd. Geoffrey Clarke (Minister at Trinity) | |||||
