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

The document was found in a volume of 18th-century Royal Navy correspondence that had not been previously recorded in detail. Photograph: The National Archives

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. A declaration by the representatives of the United States of America …”