Kent may have been on the other side of the world from the transtlantic slave trade, but Lesley Bellew reports how a group of movers and Quakers in the county were the driving force of the campaign which led to abolition 200 years ago.

Imagine the scene.

It is the summer of 1786. In a grand house overlooking the River Medway, near Maidstone, a group of Evangelical friends discuss over dinner their desire to see the abolition of the slave trade.

Around the dining room table at Barham Court, Teston, are the MP for Rochester, Sir Charles Middleton, his wife Lady Margaret, the Vicar of Teston, the Rev James Ramsay, and a curate, Thomas Clarkson. They have power and influence - but need a charismatic leader.

They conclude that the young and wealthy MP for Hull, William Wilberforce, might just be persuaded to take up the cause to put legislation before parliament.

Wilberforce joined them, and together they became known as the Testonites. The rest is history.

Now they are about to become famous all over again through the newly released film Amazing Grace, which tells how the fight to end the transatlantic slave trade was won.

Barham Court became the centre for planning the abolition campaign. Numerous meetings and strategy sessions were attended by Wilberforce and his group of influential friends, all well-connected through the church, government, education and literary circles.

Having the right connections proved the key to the Testonites’ success.

Margaret Middleton was an accomplished painter and moved in London society with the likes of theatre manager David Garrick and artist Joshua Reynolds.

She was greatly moved by James Ramsay’s 1784 essay about the appalling treatment of African slaves in the British sugar colonies and put pressure on her husband to fight the slave trade.

The Middletons knew Wilberforce as he attended St John's College, Cambridge with their son-in-law. They also knew he had the ear of Prime Minister William Pitt, of Keston.

Wilberforce became the committed frontman for the campaign and it is his name that is traditionally linked with the abolition of slavery.

But what of the Kent-based contingent?

Sir Charles' position in the Admiralty and as a newly elected Tory MP, meant he was uneasy about leading such a controversial campaign so he became the behind-the-scenes facilitator. He was a powerful figure and in later years became First Lord of the Admiralty - in 1805 he was the first to receive news that Nelson had been fatally wounded at the Battle of Trafalgar.

The Rev Ramsay served as a surgeon under Middleton in the West Indies but later took holy orders He saw at first-hand the treatment of slaves in the Caribbean. He returned to England, with his black servant, Nestor, in 1777, exhausted by his conflict with planters and businessmen.

Ramsay and Nestor are both buried at St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Teston, and commemorated on the village sign.

Thomas Clarkson came to Teston at Ramsay's invitation. Both had published essays, published by Quakers, against slavery. Clarkson won an essay competition while at Cambridge – Is it right to make men slaves against their wills?

Clarkson became curate at Teston and a founder member of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. While at Teston, he declared to his friends that he had a "direct revelation" from God ordering him to devote his life to abolishing the trade. Clarkson also linked the Testonites to the Clapham Sect, a London group led by his friend Thomas Granville, also fighting the cause.

Clarkson was given the responsibility of collecting information to support the cause. Sir Charles gave Clarkson the permission he needed to gain access to the Royal Navy shipyards. This included interviewing 20,000 sailors and obtaining equipment used on the slave-ships such as iron handcuffs, leg-shackles, instruments for forcing open slave’s jaws and branding irons.

Another important Testonite was Beilby Porteus, bishop of Chester, and rector of Hunton, who was a close friend of the Middletons.

He was deeply interested in the welfare of uprooted Africans and became the first person in church authority to support Wilberforce.

Dramatist Hannah More, another of Lady Margaret's friends, became one of the the most influential woman members of the movement. Much of what is known about the Testonites comes from her correspondence.

Her poem Slavery, was an important propagnada tool of the campaign. It includes these lines:

See the dire victim torn from social life

The shrieking babe, the agonizing wife!

She, wretch forlorn! is dragg'd by hostile hands

To distant tyrants sold, in distant lands!

Another visitor to Teston was John Newton, an ex-slave ship captain who suffered a crisis of conscience and turned to God. Newton was Wilberforce's childhood vicar and became his mentor when Wilberforce struggled with the personal conflict of being a devout Christian and an MP.

Newton loved Teston and wrote of it: "How beautiful the scene, how do all things proclaim thy presence, oh my Lord".

Newton was not the only one to be mesmerised by the Medway valley at Teston. Wilberforce himself wrote:

"I found him (Lord Barham) and his place (Barham Court) in high preservation. It has none of the grand features of your northern beauties but for the charms of softness and elegance I never beheld a superior to Barham Court".