02 jul 2026

‘Vanishingly rare’ copy of US Declaration of Independence found by volunteer in UK archives

2 outlets5hbroke the guardian 23:01

One of 11 surviving copies of ‘Exeter printing’ and only one known outside US was taken from American privateer ship For Michael Scurr, a volunteer at the National Archives in Kew, west London, it was “just a boring old Thursday morning” when he sat down in late May to catalogue a collection of documents from the British national collection that had never previously been recorded in detail. As he opened a volume of 18th-century Royal Navy correspondence, however, Scurr unfolded a document whose opening words he recognised. “In Congress, July 4, 1776.

read at the guardian

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