This collection contains two sets of material:

1. Letters to Dr. Lonsdale, of Rosehill, Carlisle, and addressed variously to: Cumberland Infirmary; Marine Crescent, Waterloo, Liverpool; Playhouse Yard, Thomas Street, Scarbro'; and, Teviot Row, Edinburgh. The letters show that he was assembling information with a view to overseeing a biography of his mentor, John Reid. The collection of letters contains material which would have formed the core of such a work which never came to fruition.

2. Five manuscript notebooks from the effects of Dr. Henry Lonsdale, Carlisle-born physician. The earliest manuscript is entitled 'Lectures on Materia Medica by Dr Christison' and relates to lectures at Edinburgh University c 1835. Two other volumes are registers and statements of account from his enterprise of commercial daily anatomy demonstration with Dr. Knox early in his career. Another of his notebooks appears to be notes, largely (but not exclusively) medical, apparently from lectures and printed works. The last volume is almost unintelligible and was used in the 1850s.