Pair find ‘Sussex Declaration’

A rare handwritten copy of the US Declaration Of Independence has been unearthed in Britain.

Hidden away at the West Sussex Record Office in Chichester, it is only the second known parchment manuscript of the historic document. The original – signed in Philadelphia on July 4 1776 and on display at the National Archives in Washington, DC – proclaimed the then-13 American colonies were free from British rule.

Harvard researchers Emily Sneff and Danielle Allen made the find while compiling records for a database, dubbing it the Sussex Declaration. Federalist and Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, one of six men to sign the Declaration and the Constitution, is thought to be the “likeliest candidate” behind the copy’s creation.

The copy is thought to have been made in the US in the 1780s.