This Post class comprises material on how the Post Office operated during wartime and civil emergencies. The greater part of the collection relates to the vital task of maintaining communications, including handling prisoners-of-war mail, censorship and civil defence arrangements during the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945). Among the early papers are documents relating to the South African War of 1899-1902 and some nineteenth century notices and field manuals of the Post Office Rifles Association.

Some records have been transferred from POST 14.

Letter from Sir Samuel Romilly of Gray's Inn, London to John Baynes (also of Gray's Inn), Embsay Kirk, near Skipton, Yorkshire, 2 Sep 1785. Regrets but excuses Baynes's silence: '... if [the lakes in Cumberland] are half as beautiful as they are described to be I dont wonder yt you cannot turn yr attention to anything yt is enveloped in y smoke of London... I have heard a gr[ea]t deal since you have been gone abt our friend y Count [i.e. Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau] tho not from himself or his belle amie [Henriette-Amélie Van Haren, Madame de Nehra]. That great deal, however is only a great many books wch he had written ...'. Mentioning a work of Mirabeau's that had been banned in France. 'Have you seen [John] Adams, the American ambassador [later US President]? I dined y o[the]r day in compy with him and his wife and w[ha]t is much better his dau[ghte]r who is so pretty ... As for y Fa[the]r he is quite M. l'Ambassadeur and seems afraid to say any thing without mystery lest one sho[ul]d find out yt he is not of a higher order of beings that oneself'. Discussing the state of patent law in respect of new inventions and examines way of making it more beneficial to patentees. Concludes with remembrances 'to our good friend Dome'.

Autograph, with signature. Endorsed with the name: Thomas G Whytehead.

This collection is divided into two sections. Section one contains material on capital punishment and the death penalty, against which Hewitt campaigned. Section two covers material concerned with obscene publications and other forms of media, including censorship, Obscene Publications Acts and other allied topics. The papers contain many printed examples of C H Rolph's articles and materials by organisation such as the Howard League for Penal Reform and the National League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty. Infamous legal cases such as the obscenity trials in the 1960s relating to 'Oz' magazine and Hubert Selby's novel 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' are discussed.

Notes, press cuttings, pamphlets and journals compiled and collected by Caroline Elizabeth Playne for her research and publications, including material regarding the war effort in the First World War in Britain, France, Germany and other countries, pacifism, censorship and propaganda and the internment of aliens in Britain, along with publications of pacifist groups, such as the National Peace Council, the No-Conscription Fellowship and the Union of Democratic Control, socialist pamphlets and official publications, 1907-1924.

Comprising research files containing press cuttings, correspondence and notes regarding incest, illegitimacy, sexual literature, censorship, homosexuality, banned books, prison reform, the Royal Family, separation, witchcraft, sexual behaviour and venereal disease, possibly for use in his works Sex and Revolution (1934), The Banned Books of England (1937), Above All Liberties (1942) and other publications (1922-1942); typescripts for submission to the 'Encyclopedia of Sexual Behaviour' (n.d.); issues of nudist and health periodicals and offprints of articles by Alec Craig and others (1936-1953).

Notebooks of Sir Gerald Barry, record conversations with Carl Goerdeler (a member of the German opposition to Hitler) and notes on British politics before and after World War Two; correspondence concerning editorial responsibilities at the 'News Chronicle'; texts of wartime broadcasts; diaries of Sir Gerald Barry's visits to France, Greece, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and the United States of America; a small section on the Festival of Britain consisting of a file of correspondence on the setting up of an International Design Centre and a file of correspondence on the redevelopment of Crystal Palace; one file of correspondence on censorship reform; and articles and speeches by Sir Gerald Barry and notes and drafts for his autobiography.