Testimonials, obituary notices, photographs, and some miscellaneous papers including a notebook.

Papers and correspondence, 1846-1974, of David Meredith Seares Watson and his family, largely comprising biographical material and family papers, scientific correspondence, and photographs, also including a few Exchequer receipts, 1568-1622.

Biographical material, 1886-1974, includes Watson's birth certificate, 1886; documentation, including certificates and correspondence, of Watson's career, honours and awards over a period of forty years, including election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, 1922, the award of its Darwin medal, 1942, and the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society, 1965; correspondence about the Directorship of the British Museum (Natural History), 1937; correspondence about the presentation album on his retirement from the Jodrell Chair, 1951; correspondence and papers relating to his final retirement from research, 1965; obituaries, 1973; F R Parrington and T S Westoll's memoir of Watson from Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1974; an account of Watson's early days and family background by his daughter Janet Vida; recollections by his research assistant Joyce Townsend; Watson's curriculum vita and bibliography.

Family papers include the birth certificate of Watson's father, David, 1846, correspondence with his wife Mary, 1888, and a letter of condolence to Mrs Watson on her husband's death, 1899; diaries of Mary Watson, 1881, 1885; birth certificate of their daughter Constance, 1888, letters from Constance to her brother David Meredith Seares Watson, 1905-1909 and undated; papers relating to Katharine Margarite Watson (née Parker), Watson's wife, including her birth certificate, 1891, marriage certificate, 1917, death certificate, 1969, and various correspondence; papers relating to Watson's daughter Katharine Mary, including letters of congratulation on her birth, 1918, and letters to her parents, 1950, 1955; material relating to Watson's mother's family, including letters of her father Samuel M Seares, 1871, 1879-1882; papers of Charles J B Hutchinson, 1879-1880, who emigrated to Australia after his engagement to Watson's mother was broken off but who remained in correspondence with her aunt, Fanny Rossiter; other Parker family papers, 1929-1972; miscellaneous other personal correspondence, 1896-1965.

Four Exchequer receipts dated 1568, 1580, 1616 and 1622 were found enclosed with a letter to Watson's wife.

Scientific correspondence of Watson, sometimes including photographs of fossil specimens, with leading palaeontologists in Africa, 1947-1953, America, 1915-1964, Australia, 1931-1962, China, 1926-1927, 1935-1964, England, 1913-1914, 1920, 1926-1960, France, 1930-1936, 1945-1956, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, 1920-1962, Russia, 1920-1962, and Scandinavia, 1922-1964, and with the palaeontologist Robert Broom, 1911-1950, and Watson's research assistant Joyce Townshend, 1929-1973, also including a few letters from Watson's wife and scientific colleagues, and an obituary of Watson, 1974; correspondence and papers on bones found at Qau, Egypt, 1930-1957, 1972; miscellaneous other palaeontological correspondence, 1912-1967. There are few copies of Watson's outgoing letters before the end of the Second World War.

Photographic material comprises photographs documenting Watson's career, [1912]-1965 and undated, some including colleagues; photographs of scientific colleagues, 1911-1951 and undated, including Watson's predecessor as Professor at University College London, J P Hill, and Robert Broom; album of photographs and signatures presented to Watson, 1951; undated family photographs, including a photograph of Watson as a boy, photographs of members of the Seares and Parker families, and photographs of Watson's wife, Katharine Margarite, and daughter, Katharine Mary; photographs of unidentified fossil specimens.

Royal Society Darwin Medal Award given to Watson, 1942.

Manuscript notes and sketches on a course of lectures on zoology given by Sir Edwin Lankester (1847-1929).

Papers of Professor Frank Balfour-Browne, comprising correspondence relating to the Department of Entomology, and a grant to Richard B Pike, 1925-1936.

Papers of John Alan Gulland, 1972-1990, comprising correspondence and papers from Gulland's period as Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College, London, 1984-1990; drafts for publications and editorial correspondence; papers relating to his consultancies, including those for the European Community and the Canadian Government; documentation of overseas visits, including a 1985 visit to Antarctica; correspondence files.

Copy of 'A letter to the most noble the Marquis of Titchfield [William Henry Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, later 4th Duke of Portland], President of the Newark Agricultural Society, on the practability [sic] and importance of introducing the merino breed of sheep extensively, upon the forrest farms of Nottinghamshire, by Benjamin Thompson' [the dramatist, [1776] - 1816]. This letter, dated from Redhill Lodge near Northampton on 20 Jun 1808, was read at a meeting of the Society held at Newark, Nottinghamshire, on 5 Jul 1808. It is followed by an extract in the same hand from The Boston Gazzette and Lincoln Shire Advertiser of 21 Jan 1812, about Thompson and his breeding of Merino sheep.

Bagshawe's correspondence, in his role as Director of the Sleeping Sickness Bureau, 1908-9, with Professor Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), in English and German, and with Sir Patrick Manson (1844-1922). Mostly on the subject of the work of the Bureau, and particularly the prevalence of sleeping sickness in Africa.

Volume containing 32 letters from John Hunter to Edward Jenner, 1773-1793. The letters were written whilst Jenner practiced medicine at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, having been a pupil of Hunters in London from 1770 to 1772. The letters record Hunter's encouragement of Jenner in his botanical, ornithological and medical observations and experiments, and include requests for Jenner to send him animal specimens, including fossils.

Papers of John Ellis, 1755, comprising a manuscript copy by an unknown author, of John Ellis An Essay towards the Natural History of the Corallines (1775); and an undated manuscript list by an unknown author, of desiderata in the West Indies, found at the end of a tract by John Ellis held in the Library A description of the mangostan and the bread-fruit (1775) TRACT B. 272 (3).

Papers of John Thomas Arlidge, 1847-1849, comprising notes on dissections, anatomical and related topics, compiled while he was a student of anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons.

Original Drawings of the Mammalian Eye by George Lindsay Johnson created for paper in 'Philosophical Transactions' B Volume 194, 1 and Volume 254, 207.

Papers of Eric Marshall including diaries on Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909, aboard the NIMROD, including diaries 31 Dec 1907-22 Mar 1908, and 23 Mar-19 Sep 1908 and diary of the southern journey on the NIMROD expedition, 29 Oct 1908-11 Mar 1909; diaries, 25 Dec 1909-18 Mar 1911, on the British Ornithologists' Union Expedition to New Guinea, photographs from the British Ornithologists' Union Expedition to New Guinea, and correspondence between Marshall and Dudley Everitt, 1955-1959, concerning the expedition to New Guinea and the British Antarctic Expedition.

Papers and correspondence of Max Nicholson, 1928-1987, including papers relating to the first expeditions of the Oxford University Exploration Club, 1928-1929; the work of the Terrestrial Conservation Section of the International Biological Programme (IBP) in Azraq, Jordan, in Tanzania and Tunisia and in miscellaneous expeditions of the 1960s to 1980s linked with the IBP; correspondence relating to National Parks, papers relating to the Jordan International Biological Station; papers relating to the Darwin Station, 1962-1971; papers relating to work in Egypt, 1983-1984; Tunisia, 1967 and Yugoslavia; papers relating to the UN/FAO Survey Team in Kalat State, Baluchistan, 1952-1953; photographs, print and correspondence relating to a number of expeditions on conservation and birdlife, 1929-1987.

Notebooks and travel diaries, describing fishing and hunting trips with some notes on birds observed in the following regions: Sweden and Norway, 1892-1899; Russian Lapland, Ireland and Denmark, 1901-1902; Russian Lapland, Norway and Denmark, 1902; Guadiana valley, Spain, 1905; Norway and Sweden, 1905; Spain: a travel diary including notes on cae dwellings and prehistoric remains, 1908; Romania, 1911; Algeria and Iceland, 1913; England and Scotland, 1915-1918; Scotland, 1919-1920; Scotland and Iceland, 1921; England and Iceland, 1922; Iceland, 1922; England, 1923-1924; Sweden and New Zealand, 1924-1925; England and Sweden, 1926; Iceland, 1927-1929; Iceland and England, 1929; Iceland, 1930; England and Ireland, 1931-1932 and England, 1932.

Papers of John Hanning Speke including observation files, 'Explorations in Eastern Africa', 1859; copies of letters from the East African expedition to Philip Lutley Sclater and Sir William Hooker, Sep 1860, and to the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1 Oct 1860; observations and computations, Lake region and upper Nile, 1861-1863; 44 letters to the RGS, 1857-1864, from East Africa with some information on his second expedition with Richard Francis Burton, and from Wiltshire concerning his relations with Burton and the preparations for his proposed expedition with James Augustus Grant to the source of the Nile, and from East Africa reporting on the progress of that expedition; letter to Col Rigby from Khoko, 12 Dec 1860; letter to King Rumanika of Karagwé, Mar 1862; two letters from John Petherick, 24 Feb and 15 Apr 1863 concerning the aid he expected to receive from Petherick; coloured plates of birds noted in Africa by Wilhelm Ruppell and others with original watercolour sketches by Speke and Grant on blank verso pages, Speke's signature on the inside front cover is followed by a page of notes on the use of watercolours and a sketch of King M'tesa of Uganda; reprint from the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol 24, 'Report on a zoological collection from the Somali country by Edward Blyth, with additions and corrections by the collector' [Speke], edited by P L Sclater, London, 1860; letter, unfinished, to Mr. Tinne, from Neston Park, 1864; sketch maps of Lake Tanganyika and of Speke's route in 1857, (11 sheets, sheet 8 has a letter from Speke to the RGS from Unyanyembe, 20 Nov 1857, written on the back); volume entitled 'Extracts', containing a collection of press cuttings relating to the discovery of the source of the Nile by Speke and Grant and to Speke's death, 1863-1864 and volume entitled 'Record', containing extracts prepared by the Royal College of Arms for the Speke family.

Sketch of a dodo by Sir Peter Scott, made at RGS, 1958.