This collection covers four aspects of the life of Sir Hugh Beaver: biographical and personal material; professional correspondence; personal correspondence; and lectures, speeches and addresses.
A) Biographical and personal: This section contains letters from friends and family sent to Sir Hugh, drafts and extracts for his autobiography, Sir Hugh's pocket diaries and desk diaries and notes press cuttings and correspondence relating to Sir Hugh's time in the Punjab Police.
B) Professional: This section contains correspondence relating to Sir Hugh's time in Canada, correspondence between Sir Hugh and Sir Alexander Gibb, correspondence relating to Sir Hugh's job at the Ministry of Works and building projects undertaken by the Ministry, correspondence relating to business affairs at Guinness, correspondence relating to his work on various committees during his time at Guinness.
C) Correspondence: This section contains personal correspondence relating to Sir Hugh and his family. It is arranged in chronological order.
D) Lectures, Speeches and Addresses: This section contains lectures, speeches and addresses on industrial planning, education, management practices, air pollution, industry and economics.

Mainly official publications and printed reports, memoranda on rearmament and supply before and during World War Two, with some photographs and personal papers, 1938-1953; notably including typescript copy of reminiscences by Brown with press cuttings and notes relating to the Ministry of Supply and other correspondence, 1938-1960; detailed diary by Turner, 1940; private papers by Turner on his domestic life, accounts, diary summaries, some correspondence and photographs, 1914-[1946]; files containing mainly typescript memoranda, correspondence and statistics relating to the Committee of Imperial Defence, War Office and Ministry of Supply, predominantly concerning rearmament and Second World War production, including progress reports on production and preparations for war, with printed reports on tanks and anti-tank guns, 1936-1943; minutes of a Committee of Imperial Defence sub-committee meeting on the supply of war material to Portugal, 1938; typescript review of air defence, including statistics of anti-aircraft guns, factory planning, civil defence, 1939-1940; file on munitions supply preparations incorporating some minutes of the Informal Army Council on munitions, 1937-1939; papers of the Industrial Capacity Committee including on US supplies to the UK in time of war, 1941; typescript briefing papers prepared for ministers for Commons' speeches, 1942; file of typescript retrospective analyses of war production contracts, 1948; printed reports and official publications on armed forces structure and expenditure, production and ordnance factories, national expenditure, post-World War One reconstruction, Ministry of Supply on inspection regimes, Whitley Councils 1917-1955, notably including 'Investigation of the Heavy Crossbow installations in Northern France', 2 vols, (1945), Ministry of Supply booklet entitled 'Progress in scientific research' (1947),'Statistics relating to the war effort of the United Kingdom' (HMSO, 1944), 'War-time tank production' (London, 1946), 'Review of Defects Disclosed by the Czechosolvak Crisis', 1938, report of a committee chaired by Sir Percy Mills on the organisation of the Royal Ordnance Factories, Apr 1951; 'Central planning and control in war and peace' by Sir Oliver Franks (1947), 'Interdenominational Advisory Committee on Army Chaplains Services', 1953,'Contracts and Finance Copy No. 2', Jun 1948; additional papers on a Royal Institute of Public Affairs Group Research Project on Changes in the Structure of Executive Government, 1956, and Report by Sir Keith Hancock on the Official History of the War: Civil Series, 1957.