Historians hail the significance of the finding, announced just before the 250-year anniversary of American independence from British rule.
A “vanishingly rare” copy of the American Declaration of Independence discovered by a volunteer at the UK’s National Archives will go on display to mark the 250th anniversary of its signing.
It is the only known example of its kind outside of the United States.
Retired insurance executive Michael Scurr made the discovery in February while sifting through letters written by an 18th-century Royal Navy captain during the American War of Independence.
Attached to a report on the capture of the American privately owned armed ship, the Dalton, on Christmas Eve 1776, was a document identified simply as “another paper.”
Scurr said he was taken aback after carefully unfolding the article; he saw the word “Declaration” printed across the top.
“I called over to my boss and said, ‘I think you need to come and have a look at this’,” he told the BBC.
Unearthing and handling such a significant historical document has been “thrilling,” he said, particularly given the significance of the timing, just two months before the semiquincentennial anniversary.
The document formally announced to the world that the 13 colonies considered themselves independent states. Before July 1776, the colonies were technically still rebelling against their king, the British monarch George III.
The declaration stated they were no longer British colonies but “Free and Independent States,” justifying the decision with 27 separate criticisms of the king.
Researchers at the archives at Kew in south-west London confirmed the finding as a rare early copy of America’s founding document, printed just days after the original was signed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.
It is one of just 11 original copies of the so-called Exeter printing of the declaration that are known to exist, and the only one identified outside the United States, the National Archives said on Thursday as it unveiled the find ahead of this weekend’s anniversary.
This version was printed in Exeter, New Hampshire, from July 16 to 19, 1776.
“This is an extraordinary discovery. It’s a vanishingly rare surviving copy of the Declaration of Independence, found not in America, but here in the UK,” said Saul Nassé, chief executive of The National Archives and keeper of Public Records.
“Preserved in our state records, it’s a powerful reminder that the history of the American Revolution is fundamentally transatlantic.”
The most famous passage, declaring that all men are created equal and have a right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” remained clearly legible, according to journalists who saw it unveiled this week.
