The fonds consists of records related to British Columbia politician and judge Alexander Malcolm Manson's life. The records in this fonds encompass all aspects of Manson's life and were produced both through his career and in his personal life. Notably, the fonds contains extensive records from Manson's political career, his judicial career, and the investments and trusts he managed. Many areas of Manson's life overlapped considerably, including overlapping careers, and records related to one area of his life may be found among records related to another area.

The contents of this fonds consist predominantly of correspondence, including carbon copies of correspondence sent by Manson. This correspondence pertains both to Manson's career as well as to various parts of his personal life and has been arranged according to the file names used by Manson wherever possible; correspondence that has not otherwise been sorted by Manson has been sorted as "general correspondence," a designation which also includes personal correspondence. Other types of records in this fonds include meeting minutes, court proceedings, financial statements, newspaper clippings, governmental reports, shareholder reports, certificates, invitations and event programmes, and photographs.

The fonds has been arranged into eight series: legal career; political career; judicial career; finances; personal life; Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; general correspondence; and photographs, scrapbooks, and ephemera.

The fonds consists primarily of Alan Haig-Brown's written and photographic works on the marine industry in Canada and internationally. Photographs document ships and boats, maritime scenes and personalities in fishing and ship-building. The geographical scope of the photographs includes British Columbia, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii; Southern Coastal US (Texas and Louisiana); Thailand, China, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines; Netherlands; Brazil.

Textual records include annotated drafts for several of Haig-Brown's books, hand-written notes, newspaper clippings, design schematics and correspondence.

The fonds also contains audio recordings of interviews and oral histories with figures in the maritime trades.