WHAT, in addition to their storage in the National Archive in Kew, is common to the Domesday Book of 1086, Guy Fawkes’s confession shakily signed in November 1605, Shakespeare’s will dated March 1616 and that of Horatio Nelson drawn up in March 1803? They—and many thousands of other venerable documents—were inscribed by hand using the same sort of ink, known as iron-gall.
A blend of ferrous salts, crushed oak-apple galls and gum arabic, iron-gall ink was prized for its intense blackness and apparent permanence. Yet these singular records of our history are in danger of self-destruction. It is an unfortunate fact of its nature that, over time, this ink turns brown and eats its way into the medium on which it was written. Such documents are subject to
