Manuscript notes in three separate notebooks. One notebook has 'Costain and Watson. Vol.II from 1865' written in ink at the top of the front cover. The first page has notes entitled 'Exchequer and Audit Depts Act of 1865', and the next notes are entitled 'Ballot Act 1872'. Another notebook has 'Newcastle's Electioneering' written in ink at the top of the front cover, with the first page having notes entitled 'Essay on Cromwell's Principles of Gov' followed by lists of names - probably local school, college or university students - and their grades for the Cromwell essay. A third notebook has no identifying title on the front cover, and the first page is taken up with the question of 'the social and economic conditions of Engand in the first half of the Seventeenth Century'.

The content of the notebooks, overall, cover 17th, 18th and 19th century British history.