The collection consists of letters signed by prominent historical figures including Napoleon I, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Disraeli, John Jellicoe, Robert Peel, William Pitt, August-Norbert Morin, and the Duke of Wellington.

The fonds consists primarily of Thomas Brayshaw’s fishing diaries (1932-1964) and correspondence, manuscripts, and subject files (1907-1967). This is largely reflective of Brayshaw’s work and related interests. The fonds also contains a collection of documents and research related to the Brayshaw family, containing genealogical research, and family photographs, personal records and artefacts. This includes some personal records of Thomas Brayshaw, notably war service records, and some photographs and fishing flies related to his work and interests.

The collection contains a variety of artifacts, and includes children's games, items related to the Gold Rush, and various odd items tangentially related to Rare Books and Special Collections and University Archives collecting interests.

The Angeli-Dennis collection consists of the diaries (1855-1913), manuscripts, financial records and correspondence of William Michael Rossetti. Also included are the manuscripts, correspondence and financial records of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1842-1882), Christina Georgina Rossetti (1853-1894), Ford Madox Brown (1852-1993), Gabriele Rossetti and other members of the Rossetti family. In addition, the collection includes materials of Robert Browning, Thomas Landseer, William North, Algernon Swinburne and James Thomson.

The collection consists of correspondence, field notes and printed material relating to the Romani people and essays and vocabulary manuscripts about the Romani of Washington State.

The collection consists of four parts: (1) photocopied and original newsletters, pamphlets, publications, clippings and printed material in general; (2) manuscript collections and personal papers (most copied from original material held elsewhere); (3) microfilms; and, (4) photographs. The manuscript files include the papers or records of Koozma John Tarasoff, Union of Doukhobors of Canada, Consultative Committee on Doukhobors, Stefan Sorokin, W.A. Makaseyoff, Peter V. Verigin, John G. Bondoreff, Christian Community and Brotherhood of Reformed Doukhobors, Peter Maloff, Alex Popoff, Eli Popoff, James Mavor, David Henderson, Claude Fisher, Peter Brock and Ivan Swetlishnoff. All the material relates to the history and activities of Doukhobors throughout the world as well as in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

The Penkill collection consists of records of William Bell Scott, Alice Boyd and Margaret Courtenay. The collection includes five hundred letters from Scott to Alice Boyd, and a large number of letters to Scott and Boyd from other artists and writers. Also in the collection are the letters from Arthur Hughes and letters concerning the 1872 illness of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The collection also includes the diaries of W.B. Scott, Alice Boyd and Margaret Courtenay.

This collection consists of materials related to early British Columbia history in the years when BC was still a British colony, prior to joining Canada in 1871. The collection consists of colonial government documents (proclamations, messages, acts, and rules and regulations) effecting the daily life of British Columbians. These include real estate titles, road works, railways, local, legal and financial matters, labour, and infrastructure. The collection includes proclamations by James Douglas, who was the first governor of BC and served from 1858-1864.

The collection consists of five letters (1863-1871); a diary belonging to Charles O. Eaton of Boston; a list of clothing and other garrison camp equipment of Lt. William McKinley, Jr.; two broadsides; a printed report of a meeting of the citizens of Bobb County, Georgia (1860); a publication of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society; a lock of Mrs. Robert E. Lee's hair and an engraving of General Ulysses S. Grant and family.

The collection consists of ninety-one albums of postcards and photographs pertaining to views and scenes mainly in British Columbia, but also including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and the Yukon as well as Europe. The views of British Columbia include views of the Rocky Mountains, Vancouver, Victoria, Mayne Island, and Buttle Lake (pre-1911) as well as those of logging (Capilano Timber Co., 1917-1920), mining (Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Co. and Consolidated Cariboo Hydraulic Mining Co.) railways (Canadian Pacific Railway, Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, and Great Northern Railway) and shipping. In addition, there are postcards and photographs of the Hudson's Bay Company Kamchatka Venture, 1921, U.S. Civil War portraits and New Zealand shipping.