The collection contains family diaries and appointment books of Thomas Humphry Ward and Mary Augusta Ward, 1871-1926; personal diaries of Dorothy Ward, 1889-1955; family letters of Arnold Ward, 1890-1915; newspaper cuttings, 1891-1920.

Papers and correspondence, 1929-1975 and undated, of Julia Frances Strachey, including diaries, notebooks, manuscripts and typescripts, 1929-1975 and undated; letters to Julia, 1924-1956 and undated, the writers including Dora Carrington; letters to Stephen Tomlin and Julia, 1923-1930 and undated, the writers including Lytton Strachey; correspondence between Stephen Tomlin and Julia, 1930-1931; correspondence between Julia and Lawrence Gowing, 1939-1971 and undated, and other letters to Julia, 1952-1967 and undated; personalia, including a copy of a divorce certificate, 1967, a will, 1971, a business diary, 1971, an appointment diary, 1974, passports, and an undated address book; postcards and photographs, largely undated, mainly miscellaneous works of art but also including Lytton and Oliver Strachey, Dora Carrington, and Stephen Tomlin; a scrapbook, 1932-1971, mainly comprising press cuttings including reviews of Strachey's novels, with a few miscellaneous letters inserted.

Sir Henry Head's papers, 1891-1909, consist of his casebooks of patients with Herpes Zoster, with sketches and photographs, chiefly from Head's work at the London Hospital, 1891-1909, and his casebooks of patients with various diseases, with sketches and charts, from his work at the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Heart and Lungs, Victoria Park, 1894.