The collection consists of a picture journal in four volumes, containing watercolours, photographs, newscuttings and documents relating to Smith-Dorrien's career, from his schooldays to the end of this naval service, 1865 to 1904. There are also three volumes of caricatures and sketches.

Note that Smith-Dorrien and Dorrien-Smith are variant names of branches of the same family, the Dorrien-Smiths of Tresco Abbey, Scilly, being previous owners of the 'Valhalla' figurehead collection there until it also became part of the National Maritime Museum collection in the 1970s.

Administrative / biographical background
Arthur Hale Smith-Dorrien, born on 23 May 1856, was the fourth son of Colonel R. A. Smith-Dorrien of Berkhamsted, Herts., and an elder brother of General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien (see ODNB). Smith-Dorrien entered the Navy in the 'Britannia' in 1870 and then went to the 'Trafalgar', which was the cadet training ship at that time. His first service was in the 'Endymion' between 1872 and 1873, after which he joined the 'Volage' during an expedition, 1874 to 1875, to observe the transit of Venus at Kerguelen Island, Indian Ocean. He then served in the 'Sultan', Channel Squadron, before taking his gunnery and Greenwich courses. In 1876 he was appointed to the 'Shah' on her commission as flagship in the Pacific and was present at the action with the Peruvian turret-ship 'Huascar'. During the Zulu war of 1879 he was in the Naval Brigade and was also promoted to lieutenant. From 1880 he was in the 'Eclipse', East Indies Station, operating against the slave trade; he ended the commission by service in the Naval Brigade in Egypt, 1882. On his return home he was appointed Flag-Lieutenant to the Commander-in-Chief, Devonport. From 1884 to 1885 he served in the Mediterranean and then in China in the 'Invincible'; from 1886 to 1887 he was in the Red Sea in the 'Condor'; from 1887 to 1889 he was in the 'Espiegle', in the Pacific and then from 1889 to 1893 was in the 'Phaeton' on the Mediterranean Station. He was appointed commander in 1893, going to the 'Britannia' and in 1897 to the 'Alacrity', Admiral's despatch vessel on the China Station. Having become a captain in 1900, in 1901 he commanded the 'Rainbow'. He retired in 1904 and was promoted to rear-admiral on the retired list in 1909, spending the rest of his life living with his unmarried sisters at the family home, New Lodge, Berkhamsted. In 1933 his body was found by a local railway line after he went for a morning walk. It was concluded that, since he was by then rather deaf, he probably did not hear it coming while close to or crossing the track. However, some newspaper reports implied that he took his own life and a verdict of ‘suicide during temporary insanity’ was returned at a local inquest. Smith-Dorrien never married and his legal executor was his nephew, Major Arthur Algernon Dorrien-Smith (strictly Smith-Dorrien-Smith) of Tresco Abbey, Isles of Scilly, who, at the time of his death, was second of that so-named branch of the family to be 'Lord Proprietor' of the islands, his father (also Algernon) having inherited it from his uncle Augustus Smith (1806-72), who was the first to hold them by lease of 1834 from the Duchy of Cornwall, succeeding over 250 years of previous lease-hold tenure by the dukes of Leeds.