The Wallis Collection contains books on mathematics and maths education and includes works by Robert Record (the man who introduced the = symbol), such as The grounde of artes: teaching the perfecte worke and practise of arithmetike (1582) and works by and about Isaac Newton, such as Newton's Principia in its first American edition (1846).

The books were formerly owned by Peter Wallis (1918-1992), a lecturer in the School of Education. There are almanacs, works on algebra and geometry, school text books, works on astronomy including J.F.W. Herschel's Astronomy (1835), guides to measuring, book-keeping, ready reckoners, treatises, Euclid's Elements and manuals.