The collection provides good documentation of many aspects of McIlwain's career and his contribution to the development of neurochemistry in the UK and internationally.

Section A, Biographical, brings together obituaries, curricula vitae and bibliographies, and material relating to the various stages of McIlwain's scientific career, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, his appointment to the Biochemistry Chair at the Institute of Psychiatry in 1954 and the symposium held in his honour on his retirement in 1980. The section also presents a significant body of material relating to McIlwain's undergraduate studies at King's College, University of Durham, including essays and notebooks.

Section B, Institute of Psychiatry, is principally papers relating to the activities of McIlwain's own Department of Biochemistry and especially its teaching programme in neurochemistry. There is also material relating to various government and University of London enquiries into medical education.

Section C, Research, includes copies of McIlwain's M.Sc. and Ph.D. theses, notes, drafts and reports for early work in the 1930s and correspondence 'from the Lab' for the 1930s and 1940s.

Section D, Publications, lectures and broadcast, is the largest in the collection. It presents significant documentation, especially correspondence, relating to his textbook Biochemistry and the central nervous system which went through five editions, 1955-1985, and important editorial correspondence for the Biochemical Journal (member of the Editorial Board, 1946-1950), Biochemical Pharmacology and Journal of Neurochemistry. There are also drafts for lectures and seminars for scientific audiences in the UK and abroad, principally from the 1960s onwards.

Section E, Societies and organisations, documents McIlwain's involvement with a number of UK and international bodies including the Biochemical Society, the International Brain Research Organisation and the International Society for Neurochemistry (ISN) of which he was a founder member and from 1984 'Historian' of the Society with responsibility for its archives.

Section F, Visits and conferences, covers the period 1947-1993 and is of particular interest for its documentation of the historical sessions which McIlwain organised at ISN meetings.

Section G, Correspondence, presents an alphabetical sequence of McIlwain's correspondence including significant exchanges with a number of distinguished mentors and contemporaries such as G.R. Clemo, F. Dickens, K.A.C. Elliott, P.G. Fildes, S.S. Kety, H.A. Krebs, Derek Richter and F.L. Rose, and a chronological sequence of shorter scientific correspondence covering the period 1938-1992.

There is also an index of correspondents.

Papers of the Wellcome Chemical Research Laboratories, 1899-[1946], comprising correspondence files, a rule book, microfilms of files, and publications.

Papers of Professor Henry Edward Armstrong and Edward Frankland Armstrong, 1819-1945, comprising personal papers, 1865-1951, including tickets, receipts, autographs, printed material and correspondence of Henry Edward Armstrong relating to Finsbury Technical College and the Central Institution of the City and Guilds Institute (later City and Guilds College), 1884-1885; press-cuttings concerning Edward Frankland Armstrong, 1922;
photographs and prints, 1819-1929, including family photographs; print of the London Institution, 1819;
correspondence, 1864-1945, notably between Edward Frankland and Henry Edward Armstrong, 1899-1911, concerning Edward Frankland Armstrong's studies, their joint research; London Chemical Society, 1872-1938; City and Guilds of London Institute, 1879-1911; Sir William Crookes, 1885-1915; James John Day, [1867]-1869; Sir James Dewar, concerning research and the politics of the Royal Society and Royal Institution, 1893-1920; Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert, 1887-1897; Sir John Bennet Lawes, 1891-1897; Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, 1884-1935; Sir William Augustus Tilden, 1874-1896; William Palmer Wynne, 1904-1943;
notebooks kept by Henry Edward Armstrong's children of experiments devised by him, 1898.

Correspondence, diaries and other papers of Sir Alfred Charles Glyn Egerton, including some personal papers but largely relating to The Royal Society and particularly to wartime activities and post-war research needs in Britain. The diaries form an almost complete record of Egerton's career during the period 1943-1959. Earlier diaries date back to 1917 and the period 1929-1930, but for the most part they relate to the period 1938-1941.

Robinson's volatile temperament and his impatience with administration and routine have seriously affected the survival of material. Thus little survives of his correspondence which he usually wrote in longhand and without copies, or of his public life, service on committees, advisory boards, learned societies, and in the launching of new journals. There are, however, many manuscript notes in varying lengths of sequence and a few notebooks relating to research topics. Examples are a sequence of ideas on the possible structure of strychnine, tentatively dated 1945-1947 by J.W. Cornforth, and from a later period two relatively extensive sequences of research and correspondence, on the origins of petroleum and on drug research. Lacunae in the collection are to some extent compensated for by the autobiographical material. There are the background material and corrected proofs for the first volume of his memoirs published in 1976, and substantial typescript drafts of the second volume which was unfinished at his death together with narratives, correspondence and photographs sent to him by colleagues. There are also tape-recordings of conversations with colleagues covering similar types of recollections.

Records of Howards and Sons, manufacturers of pharmaceutical chemicals, 1798-1950, including records relating to the formation of the company; records of partnerships; memoranda and articles of association; notices of resolutions; papers relating to formation of company in 1903 and its reconstruction in 1920; records of shareholders; records of debenture stockholders; Company seal and Board memorandum books.

Papers relating to property owned by the Company, including leases and related papers; insurance records; records of building work and plans of the laboratories and factories at Plaistow, Stratford and Ilford. Financial accounts and bank statements; records relating to staff including wages books and pension papers.

Papers relating to manufacture and trade including papers relating to patents, licences and agreements; records of experiments; records of stock, production and trade, including accounts, correspondence, price lists, advertisements and newscuttings and papers relating to exhibitions. Papers relating to the manufacture of quinine, including patents and agreements; records of production and trade, including records of supply of bark, accounts, technical and business reports, correspondence, price lists and newscuttings.

Records relating to subsidiary companies including Hopkin & Williams Ltd.

Hopkin and Williams Ltd., Thorium Branch; Thorium Ltd.

Hopkin and Williams (Travancore) Ltd.

Hatton Contract Co. Ltd. and Golden Eagle Syndicate; James Anthony and Co. Ltd.

Agatash Estates Ltd.

Barking and Ilford Navigation Co. Ltd.

British Camphor Co. Ltd.

Demerara Development Co. Ltd.

Drogueria de la Estrella Ltda., Buenos Aires; Methylators Ltd. and O. Wallis and Co. Ltd.

Papers relating to the Howard family and associates, including John Williams, Joseph Jewell, R. J. Law. Also photographs and drawings; and a collection of printed technical and historical works relating to the work of the company, including a history of the Company, biographies and local history.

Personal correspondence, 1937-1952, between Shearing and Samuel Smiles, Daniell Professor of Chemistry at King's College London, relating to the publication of Shearing's research, and Shearing's work and career; letters, 1938, from Arthur John Allmand, Daniell Professor of Chemistry at King's College London, requesting information on Shearing's career and the Samuel Smiles Prize Fund; 'Report of the Samuel Smiles Prize and Presentation Fund Committee', [1939]; dinner menu and photographs of a chemists' gathering at the Waldorf Hotel, London, 1937.

Papers of Sir Alfred Egerton, 1908-1958, comprising research papers, notes and reports largely relating to explosives, manufacture of ammonia and hydrogen, [1916-1925], laboratory work at Oxford, 1919-1926, work for the Admiralty, 1940-[1950], papers relating to patents, 1928-1958; research notebooks, 1908-1937, including some correspondence and notably concerning vapour pressure of metals, amides of metals, residual gases in discharge tubes; lecture notes concerning combustion; papers on optical pyrometry, 1933-1938; correspondence and papers relating to research on the properties of steam, steam tables, international conferences on steam, 1930-1946.

The papers are not extensive and consist almost entirely of laboratory notebooks and working papers relating to his early work on molecular reactions and gas reactions, 1919-1938. There are also notes and reports of work on respirator design undertaken by Hinshelwood and his team for the Chemical Defence Board, Ministry of Supply, during the Second World War.

Report to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research entitled 'The photochemical interaction of hydrochloric and oxygen', 1924, comprising research conducted by Franklin at King's College London, under the supervision of Professor Arthur John Allmand, Professor of Chemistry, Dec 1922-Jul 1924.

Records of Whiffen and Son Ltd, manufacturing chemists, 1752-1972, including history of the company; articles of partnership and other contracts and agreements; legal documents relating to property; correspondence; circulars; financial accounts; papers relating to shares and shareholders; stock records; newspaper cuttings; photographs; staff wages books and pensions papers; records relating to staff associations and sports clubs including minute books; reports on chemical manufacture, laboratory notebooks and chemical analyses; papers relating to sales; papers relating to imports and foreign suppliers; advertisements; registers of product labels; samples of packaging; rules, regulations and legislation regarding factories and safety measures; papers regarding the Second World War including war damage to factories and papers relating to staff on active duty.

Also records of Saint Amand Manufacturing Company Limited including ledgers, letter books and journals.

Papers of William Arthur Bone, 1890-1938, comprising analysis books, 1890-1920, containing record of work at Owen's College, Manchester, notes on experiments, records of trails, analyses of fuels; press cuttings and letters relating to Flame and Combustion in Gases, 1927-1938; papers relating to appointment at Imperial College, 1911-1913; obituary notice.

Papers of Sir Patrick Linstead, 1916-1968 (presented by Lady Linstead), comprising biographical papers, 1916-1968, including certificates of honours and awards, letters of congratulation, non-scientific writings, desk diaries whilst Rector of Imperial College, 1955-1966; notebooks and working papers, [1920]-1963, comprising notebooks of students days, early work at Imperial College, research at Harvard, research at Imperial College from 1949; drafts and manuscripts for lectures and publications, 1947-1966, (some of which are not listed in the official bibliography); papers relating to Linstead's work as consultant and service on committees, including his Chairmanship of the British Association Study Group on the education of the graduate scientist, 1938-1960; correspondence, 1948-[1966];

papers relating to his Rectorship of Imperial College, 1954-1967, comprising biographical and obituary notices, 1966-1967; appointment as Rector, 1954-1955; speeches, addresses and lectures, 1956-1966; papers and correspondence relating to the Committee on management and control of research and development, 1958-1962, Committee on Higher Education, 1961-1964; correspondence relating to the London School of Economics Court of Governors, 1960-1965, Science Masters' Association, 1961-1963, Association for Science Education, 1964-1965; papers relating to visits, 1955-1957, including to European universities and institutions; correspondence, 1954-1966, notably concerning the Consort Club, 1957-1962, academic salaries, 1959, with Harold Johann Thomas Ellingham, [1954-1965], John Frederick Wolfenden, [1954-1965], dinner in hall, 1955-1958, proposed International Institute of Science and Technology, 1961-1963; correspondence concerning Linstead Memorial, 1966-1968; papers concerning a visit to India, 1963-1964; Congress of the Universities of the Commonwealth visit to Imperial College, 1963; proposed International Institute of Science and Technology, 1961-1963.

Letters from Sir Robert Moray to his friend Alexander Bruce, Earl of Kincardine, also known as 'The Kincardine Papers'. Bruce was sick of the ague in Bremen for part of this time, and the letters were written to alleviate the tedium of of Bruce's illness, hence ranging over topics which might not otherwise have been the subjects of correspondence. They include accounts of chemical experiments in his laboratory, his interest in magnetism, medicine in all its aspects, horticulture, fuel, whale fishing, its risks and profits, coal mining, water wheels and tide mills, stone quarrying and the various qualities of different stones, the pumping works needed for undersea coal mines at Bruce's home at Culross in Fifeshire, even to the trees whose wood was best for pipelines, and the diameter of the bore best suited to the purpose. Familiarity is shown with mathematical and surveying instruments, with music, and all sorts of mechanical devices and especially clocks and watches, more particularly the taking out of a patent in respect of a clock for use at sea for finding longitude. Bruce is advised on the choice of books over a wide range of subjects. Moray includes anecdotes to amuse his ailing correspondent; he describes his quiet life and is enthusiastic about many of his chemical experiments. Notable at the end of the letters Moray added what he described as his Masonic signature - a pentagram which also occurs in his crest.