The papers held at Newcastle are a substantial repository of the personal papers and plans of Sharp. The major part of the collection consists of papers collected from Sharp's Oxford house on his death by the now-retired Professor Brenikov of this University. The papers were subsequently put into storage. Their significance realised they were deposited with the University Library Special Collections. The principal elements of the collection are as follows:

• Files of information and correspondence relating to individual texts, including unpublished works

• Files of information and correspondence relating to individual plans. This includes, for example, work on historic cities, new villages, new towns and overseas commissions and competition entries

• Original plans for many commissions

• Extensive documentation on key planning cases where Sharp appeared as a witness at public inquiry e.g. Oxford Roads, Kepier Power Station Durham, Clarendon Hotel Oxford

• Extensive books of press-cuttings on all of the above

• Typescript of an unpublished autobiography and manuscript autobiographical notes

• Typescripts of government information films, radio talks, lectures

• Documentation on unsuccessful commissions

• Correspondence regarding the formation of the Civic Trust

• Lecture slides

• Miscellaneous personal correspondence

• Creative writing i.e. poetry, novels, radio plays etc., largely unpublished

Collectively these resources demonstrate the evolution of Sharp's thinking both in terms of individual commissions and over the course of his career. They illustrate important issues about the process of undertaking planning commissions in the period e.g. fees charged, numbers of staff employed, briefs set etc. They provide a rich source of information on how commissions were received both by clients and professional and local audiences. Additionally they are a rich source of material on how competing arguments and ideologies of urban evolution were advanced.

Manuscript transcripts of radio communications created by members of the British North Greenland Expedition (BNGE) while in Greenland. The messages cover communication between individual expedition members, units of the expedition, and external parties such as American and Danish military bases and the expedition's main external point of contact and control which was referred to as Pakice and located in London.

The expedition took place over two phases between 1952 and 1954 and undertook a range of work on the North Greenland Icecap including glaciology, seismology, geology, gravitometry, radio wave observations, and mapping of the ice sheet. The expedition also provided an important test bed for British polar research capabilities more broadly, including logistics, communication and medicine. Members of the expedition team were predominantly members of the military, but it included several members who would later have notable careers in academia and research, including Hal Lister, James Simpson, Stan Paterson and Peter Wyllie.

The communication include reports of progress and scientific measurements, discussions regarding expedition plans, records of incidents and their resolution, and communications between expedition members and family.

Transcripts cover most of the period of the expedition, and include messages sent and received. However, the archive is not a full and complete set of transcripts. There are no transcripts in the archive covering the first 2 months of the expedition, nor for between January and April 1953.

The papers and photographs of Gertrude Bell mainly consist of the letters Gertrude Bell sent home to her family whilst on her travels, of the diaries she kept when abroad, and the photographs taken whilst she was away.

The papers consists of sixteen thousand letters, sixteen diaries, seven notebooks and forty-four packets of miscellaneous material; whilst the photographic collection is about 7000 in number, and consists of photographs taken by her between c.1900-1918. Those of Middle Eastern archaeological sites are of great value because they record structures which have since been eroded or, in some cases, have disappeared altogether, while those of the desert tribes are of considerable anthropological and ethnographical interest.

Her competence as a field archaeologist and photographer means that the papers are indispensable for archaeological research of parts of the Middle East.

The items in the Bell Miscellaneous Papers contain material relating to Bell's work and travels, including contemporary articles, notes by Bell on various topics (archaeological sites, Arab tribes, etc.), letters concerning the publication of Bell's letters by Lady Richmond and letters to and from Gertrude Bell, maps and plans, literary manuscripts, lecture notes and copies of letters from Gertrude Bell held elsewhere. There is also a series of the letters known as the Doughty-Wylie letters, 1913-1915. These are the letters between Gertrude Bell and Charles Doughty-Wylie, an army officer with whom Bell was in love. The letters were returned to Gertrude Bell after his death at Gallipoli in 1915.

The Stanford Collection comprises the musical manuscripts (published and otherwise) of Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) and was brought together by Dr. Frederick Hudson, at one time a member of staff in the Department of Music.The collection, representing approximately seventy-five percent of Stanford's output (symphonies, operas, chamber, concerto, piano and organ works, church music and choral works), includes autograph manuscripts and photocopies of autographs, as well as transcripts of Stanford's letters to The Times, essays and articles. For many years organists in Canada and England were of the opinion that there were no brass or percussion parts for St. Patrick's Breastplate but the score proves that there were!

Consists of: Correspondence of the Brown family during World War I. Photographs taken in France and England both during and after the war. Includes photographs of buildings damaged by bombing, memorials and graves, and reunion events after World War I. Maps covering areas of France, Germany and Austria, some of which show the position of trenches in World War I. Memorabilia relating to World War I including newspaper clippings, posters and documents. Publications including journals and comics published during World War I, as well as historical and creative works relating to, and published after, World War I.

Papers primarily relate to Wilcox's time in Germany and Russian and mainly consist of typescripts (some annotated/edited) and offprints of articles published in contemporary journals. These include, for example, versions of a series of articles on Kerensky and Korniloff from the Fortnightly Review (September 1918-January 1919) and the subject's response. There is also a large collection of foreign-language articles and pamphlets (some by Wilcox), including B.V. Savinkov's Za rodinu i svobodu (Warsaw, 1920). Also included is a series of typed primary sources (speeches/statements), primarily relating to the Kerensku-Korniloff affair. There is some correspondence, most significantly a series of letters from Edmund Clerihew Bentley written from the Daily News and, later, the Daily Telegraph (1908-1923). Bentley was a journalist, author of Trent's Last Case, and inventor of the clerihew poem, and remained in contact with Wilcox for many years, although there are no extant letters later than 1923. Also included are a number of letters from Irene Ward, MP, and a small collection of family correspondence. Papers also include collections relating to Wilcox's personal and family life. These include a large collection of photographs, a small collection of articles and pamphlets in areas of interest and bills and receipts relating to the last years of Wilcox's life in Newcastle upon Tyne.

The papers of Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford (1870-1949), relate chiefly to his political career, but also include material concerning his personal and professional life. They cover his election campaigns and his political career, during the years 1894-1938, and in particular they cover the different political offices he held, as a Liberal M.P. and Cabinet Minister, and as a member of the Board of Education, 1908-11, and the Board of Trade, 1914-16 and 1931-37. There is also material relating to Runciman's attempt to solve the 1938 Sudeten crisis through his mission to Czechoslovakia.The collection also includes the diaries and some correspondence of Walter's wife, Hilda Runciman, herself briefly an M.P. Hilda's diaries have been found to be of particular value to researchers, providing as they do an insight into the world and circles in which she and her husband moved, sometimes revealing insider knowledge about the current talk in London Society, a classic example being Hilda's remarks in her 1936 diary about the abdication crisis and the King's intentions. In addition, there are 114 volumes of press cuttings, plus material relating to Walter Runciman's father, the 1st Baron Runciman, as well as documents relating to Sir Walter Leslie Runciman (1900-1989).

The papers of the distinguished public servant Lady Plowden (1910-2000) were generously gifted to Newcastle University Library in 2003 by the Plowden family.

Held in Special Collections, Lady Plowden's papers are an extensive and rich resource reflecting her many areas of concern. Lady Plowden held a number of high-profile public roles in the spheres of education reform and television broadcasting, most notably as Chairman of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England), 1963 – 1967, Vice-Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, 1970 – 1975, and Chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), 1975 – 1980. A large and varied number of public roles followed, many of which retained this focus on primary and pre-school education reform as well as the promotion of high-quality television broadcasting. Lady Plowden's interests were wide however and these papers also reflect Lady Plowden's roles within organisations related to Romany and Traveller education and rights, adult education, the care and resettlement of offenders, the role of voluntary work, young adult unemployment and training, and women and employment.

Lady Plowden (nee Richmond) was a niece of Gertrude Bell and a cousin of the Trevelyans of Wallington. An additional deposit of material made by the Plowden family comprise of a number of family photograph albums and correspondence files relating to the Richmond, Bell and Trevelyan families.

The archive mainly comprises correspondence relating to Charles' activities as a Civil Servant and administrator. There are also publications relating to these activities and Charles' wider interests.

There is also personal content, including travel diaries, family correspondence and papers regarding inheritance of the Wallington estate in Northumberland.

Newcastle University evolved from two colleges founded in the Nineteenth Century as part of the University of Durham, the School of Medicine and Surgery (established in 1834) and Durham College of Science (established in 1871, became Armstrong College in 1904). In 1937, the Newcastle Colleges became King's College and achieved independence from the University of Durham in 1963 when it became the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.The University Archive contains significant material relating to the development of Newcastle University and its predecessors. It includes Annual Reports, Senate and Council minutes and departmental publications covering many subjects.