The collection consists of twenty-seven logs, journals and letterbooks and some single documents. Seven volumes formerly belonged to Admiral Sir Charles Tyler (q.v.): they include his letter and order books, 1786 to 1789, 1779 to 1802, 1808, 1812 to 1813; the log of the WARRIOR, 1799 to 1800, 1802; and his journal, 1813 to 1815 when he was Commander-in-Chief at the Cape of Good Hope. Individual logs include three kept by midshipmen serving aboard the WARRIOR, 1809 to 1811; SULTAN, 1810 to 1813; and GALATEA, 1810 to 1813; and those kept by a master's assistant in the schooner FAIR ROSAMUND, 1833 to 1835, in the Spanish slave schooner La Pantinca taken as a prize, 1834, and in the brigs Conflict and Forester, 1834. A single letterbook contains the letters written and received by Rear Admiral Thomas Fremantle (q.v.), 1813 to 1814, when in command of a squadron in the Adriatic. The earliest of the journals are those kept by the Captain of the Pelican during the La Rochelle expedition, 1628; by Jeremy Roch (1659-1692) during voyages on the Antelope, 1665 to 1667, and the Charles Galley, 1689 to 1691; and by Francis Rogers on a voyage to the East Indies in the Arabia Merchant, 1701 to 1705, which includes accounts of trade at Charleston, 1711. All three were printed in a book edited by Sir Bruce Ingram, Three Stuart Sea Journals (London, 1936). Later journals include that of Bertolemeo Muscat who served aboard the French brig Le National during the Egyptian expedition, 1798; the journal of the Reverend Edward Mangin, aboard the GLOUCESTERr and VALIANT, 1812; that kept by a midshipman who landed with a party of men from the Falmouth on Tristan da Cunha in 1816. Also noteworthy in this collection are the memoirs of Peter Cullen, surgeon, 1769 to 1812, and a report on the fortifications along the south coast of England in 1779.

Administrative / biographical background
Sir Bruce Stirling Ingram (1877-1963) was editor of the Illustrated London News and for a time was an Honorary Vice-President of the Society for Nautical Research.