London, UK - A volunteer archivist who stumbled upon a "vanishingly rare" copy of the Declaration of Independence, the only one of its kind outside the US, said he had to keep the discovery a secret from his friends and family.
Michael Scurr, a retired insurance broker, happened upon the founding document of the US on a "boring, old Thursday morning" while volunteering at the National Archives, in Kew, west London.
The document, which had been stashed away in the state’s archive for centuries, is an extremely rare 1776 printing from Exeter, New Hampshire, one of only 11 copies of that kind in the world.
Scurr, who has volunteered at the National Archives for 11 years, found the document while combing through old captains' papers in May.
"I started reading a particular letter, which seemed to have an awful lot of enclosures, and I thought, 'Oh, I’m going to be here all morning with this letter,'" he told the Press Association.
"But I do have to read everything to make sure that I pick up everything that’s important and relevant."
"After several of the enclosures, I came across this document, unfolded it, and it had in big letters on the top: Declaration."
"This is not something that I’d ever come across, and I thought, well, this is really exciting."
"So, I called across to my boss, Bruno, and said, I think you should come and have a look at this."
Declaration of Independence copy hailed as "extraordinary discovery"
Scurr was told to keep his discovery secret from the other volunteers as well as his friends and family for over a month, as historians pored over the document.
"A secret is something that needs to be kept, if it’s not, it’s not a secret, so I just kept quiet about it," he said. "I think my family will be really interested to hear about it, and my friends, and particularly … my fellow volunteers."
The document, which announced the independence of Britain’s 13 American colonies, was among the papers seized by the Royal Navy on Christmas Eve 1776 when it captured an American ship.
Copies like this were produced to spread news of independence quickly across other British colonies and were often carried on ships to rally support for the revolutionary cause.
"It’s really significant for us because it’s one of the few," Dr. Graham Moore, a curator at the National Archives, told PA. "We have a lot of copies, well, we have several copies of the Declaration of various different types."
"This one is so interesting to me because not only is it new to us and it’s a rare one, there’s only 11 now of this Exeter Declaration in the world."
The National Archives already holds three official printings of the Declaration of Independence, though none are as rare as the one found by Scurr.
Following its discovery, the document underwent conservation work to smoothen out any creases and ensure it would be ready for future display.
Saul Nassé, chief executive of the National Archives, said: "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."
"Preserved in our state records, it’s a powerful reminder that this history of the American Revolution is fundamentally trans-Atlantic."
Nassé said the document will soon go on display at the Archive’s Revolution 250 exhibition, which tells the story of America’s independence between 1763-1783.