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The collection includes two of his diaries (1854 and 1875), letters of condolence on his death and many of his personal letters. Some of the letters pertain to his work in the explosives industry while many are correspondence between him and his social and professional contemporaries: Sir William Armstrong, Sir James Dewar, The Duke of Devonshire, Michael Faraday, Thomas Graham, Carl Haag, A W von Hofmann, William Odling and William Rockerfeller as well as the private secretaries acting on behalf of Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales (latterly King George V).

Press-cuttings, letters patent, telegrams and photographs of William Perkin, including one Perkin took of himself aged 14.

Books, pamphlets and folio-size posters on explosives and firearms dating from 1598 to 1920. Many of the pamphlets in the collection relate to the manufacture and use of gunpowder.

The collection consists of approximately 100 items on alchemy and early chemistry, the most notable item being De Secretis Mulierum. The collection also includes manuscripts of lectures given by Sir Henry Roscoe; his notes on solar chemistry work; letters written to him by a number of his peers and his notebook from 1849. The many volumes of letters in the collection includes correspondence with contemporaries such as Robert Bunsen, Michael Faraday, Dmitri Mendeleeff and Louis Pasteur as well as with a number of Presidents of the Chemical Society and the Royal Institute of Chemistry.

The collection is comprised of 347 books and pamphlets on the subject of sugar; the oldest item is from 1752 by E Comyns.