The collection mainly consists of a set of Isabel Fry's personal diaries and notebooks dating from 1878-1958. These are supplemented by letters to her friend Eugénie Dubois, c1930-1958, and a few publications and photographs. The diaries reflect all aspects of her life and career including her teaching activities and educational ideas; her preoccupations with political and social affairs, including political reform and emancipation in the East and in Turkey and Persia; her friendships with liberal intellectuals; and her involvement with anti-militarist movements, slum clearance, socialism and feminism. Also included are details of her relationship with her family, friends and their wider social circle.

The collection is mostly comprised of diaries written by Florence Turtle between 1917 and 1980. The first three diaries (1917-1919) contain generally brief and sporadic entries. There are then no diaries for the years 1920-1928. From 1929 onwards the diaries contain more detailed entries. There are no diaries for the years 1944, 1946, 1948-1949, 1952-1954, 1962, 1964-1965, or 1967-1970. Florence writes in her diaries about her relationships with family and friends, her living situation, work life, social life, holidays, and local, national and international current events, and records her thoughts and feelings on various matters. Many of the diaries contain additional notes, clarifications and corrections made by Florence in the 1970s. Some of the diaries contain photographs, and also pencil illustrations by Florence. The collection also contains one volume in which Florence reviews the books she reads throughout 1936, and a volume entitled 'Book of Ideas', in which Florence has written quotations from various sources, and also glued newspaper cuttings. The remaining items in the collection are a set of photographs of Florence's family and friends, and a framed certificate of election to the Buyers Association of Great Britain.