Volunteer finds ‘vanishingly rare’ Declaration of Independence in London archive

A rare 1776 printing of the US Declaration of Independence – one of just 11 known to survive and the only copy outside the United States – which has been discovered at The National Archives in Kew, west London (Shivansh Gupta/PA) -

A volunteer archivist who stumbled upon a “vanishingly rare” copy of the US 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 US’s founding document on a “boring, old Thursday morning” while volunteering at the National Archives, in Kew, west London.