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.

This collection of books was given to the Library by Gertrude Bell's brother Maurice (1871-1944), most of which previously belonged to Sir Hugh and Sir Lowthian Bell (respectively their father and grandfather) who were both industrialists. The collection consists of approximately 500 books and is strongest in economics and industry, particularly coal-mining, railways and chemistry but also including iron, steel, explosives and oyster fisheries.Included are Beckly, H. The bankers' panic: a letter to the Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, M.P., First Lord of the Treasury (1875), Hole, J. The homes of the working classes, with suggestions for their improvement (1866) and works by two prominent women - the writer on science, mathematics and astronomy, Mary Somerville's Physical geography (1858) and one of the leaders of the suffrage movement, Millicent Garrett Fawcett's Political economy for beginners (1876).