BBC News – Photo Lorin Granger/Harvard Law School
A manuscript once considered an unofficial copy of Magna Carta is now believed to be a genuine version and ”one of the world’s most valuable documents”, according to UK academics.
Harvard Law School paid $27.50 (then about £7) for it in 1946 and for years it has remained tucked away in its library, its true identity unknown.
The professors, who spent a year researching Harvard’s document, believe it is from the town of Appleby, Cumbria.
They think the trail from Appleby to Harvard involves the Lowthers, a land-owning family who gave the document to Thomas Clarkson, a leading abolitionist of the 1780s.