Travel has changed radically over the past few hundred years.
Passports now have micro chips, holograms and bio screening security.
But hundreds of years ago they were far more simple.
It wasn’t until 1855 that the first official travel documents were issued to British citizens. But the first passport dates back far beyond that, all the way to 1636.
The oldest known travel document in existence belongs to a man called Sir Thomas Littleton.
Signed by Charles R, also known as King Charles I, the single sheet of paper grants Sir Littleton his travel privileges.
King Charles gives permission for the man to “passe out of this our realme into the part beyond the Seas, there to remayne the space of three yeres.”
Sir Littleton was travelling with four servants, fifty pounds and his own “trunckes and necessaries”.
Under the passport rules he was prohibited from entering the realm of any “foraine Prince or Potentate not being with us in league or amitie”.
The passport is so rare that it’s worth a tidy sum almost four hundred years on.
It sold at auction in Knightsbridge, London, in 2016 for £1,375.
Passports have come a long way in four hundred years but they might soon become obsolete.
