This collection encompasses all the main phases of Crosland's career; his education and early career, World War II, his time as a Member of Parliament. It includes personal and professional correspondence, diaries, notes and notebooks, publications, speeches, broadcasts, photographs, and ephemera (including opera, theatre and concert programmes) and comprises the following:
Part I. Education and Early Career, 1930-1950
Section 1) Highgate School (exercise books and certificates); Section 2) Trinity College, Oxford (essays and notes, material relating to student societies, and ephemera); Section 3) War (including diaries, correspondence and notebooks).

Part II. Member of Parliament, 1950-1977
Section 4) Papers; Section 5) Ministerial; Section 6) Labour Party; Section 7) Constituency; Section 8) Official foreign visits.

Part III. Correspondence (personal and professional), 1927-1976:
Section 9) 1927-1949; Section 10) 1950-1966; Section 11) 1967-1970; Section 12) 1971-1976.

Part IV. Various, 1920 - 1980
Section 13) Books, pamphlets, articles, speeches and broadcasts (concerning socialism, economics, and political campaigning); Section 14) Co-operative Independent Commission; Section 15) Profiles and biography; Section 16) Notes, note books, press cuttings and miscellaneous (personal accounts, notes and reflections); Section 17) Susan Crosland's papers (concerning biographies of Anthony Crosland); Section 18) Crosland Additional (photographs and ephemera).

The following sections, describing printed items, have been added to the catalogue as appendices: 1. Printed articles and speeches by Crosland; 2. Pamphlets (collected by Crosland); 3. Opera, Theatre and Concert Programmes.
There are two later accessions of scrapbooks, press cuttings, photographs, war medals and correspondence, c1920-c1980, and a file on the International Monetary Fund, 1976-1987.