The papers contain one log, 1844 to 1848, letters to his mother, 1859, appointments, 1844 to 1860, and Captain Osborn's report on the mission of the Furious in China.

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Administrative / biographical background
William Jones, son of Captain Jenkin Jones (q.v.), took the name of Byrom under terms of inheritance which stipulated that his wife's name should be added to his own. He entered the Navy in 1844 in the Collingwood, which was stationed at Portsmouth, became a lieutenant in 1850 and was in the Baltic and Black Sea during the Crimean War. In 1857 he sailed to China in a fleet of fifteen gunboats under Captain Sherard Osborn (1822-1875), sent to reinforce the China Squadron. The Leo, commanded by Jones, accompanied the Furious in 1858, when Lord Elgin was escorted up the Yangtse river to Hankow. In 1859 Jones was promoted to commander. The Leo was lost in the attack on the Taku forts and the consequent courts martial ended in honourable acquittal for Jones. On his return home the early symptoms of tuberculosis were beginning to appear and he only served at sea again for one year, 1861 to 1862.