The papers consist of a volume of bound letters written by Sir John Franklin between 1820 and 1845 to his niece Mary Anne Kay and to Lieutenant Edward Kendall, R.N., whom she later married. Several letters refer to Franklin's second overland expedition. His last letter was written in 1845 at the Whale Fish Islands. There are other letters relating to exploration and some Arctic material including prints and manuscript copies of the New Georgia Gazette of 1819.

Administrative / biographical background
Franklin entered the Navy in 1800. He served as midshipman under his cousin, Captain Matthew Flinders (q.v.) from 1801 to 1803, surveying the coasts of Australia. He began his Arctic career as second-in-command to Captain David Buchan (d. ca1839) during the Spitsbergen expedition of 1818. From 1819 to 1822 he commanded an expedition down the Coppermine River of Canada to the Arctic Ocean. From 1825 to 1827 he commanded a second expedition to the Arctic Ocean down the Mackenzie River. He was knighted in 1829. Franklin was in the Mediterranean from 1830 to 1833 and between 1833 and 1844 was Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). In 1845 at the age of fifty-nine, he took command of an expedition in search of the North-West Passage in the Erebus and Terror. He died on board the Erebus off King William Island. See Sir J. Franklin, 'Narrative of the journey to the shores of the Polar Seas in the years 1819, 1820, 21 and 22' (London, 1823) and 'Narrative of a second expedition to the shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1825, 1826 and 1827' (London, 1828). Among a number of biographies is Richard J. Cyriax, 'Sir John Franklin's Last Arctic Expedition' (London, 1939).