The Society for Nautical Research records were deposited on loan from 1977 onwards. Permission to use them should be obtained from the Honorary Secretary. They consist of: Council minutes, annual reports of the Council and reports from sub-committees, 1926 to 1977; minutes of the preliminary General Meeting, 1910; minutes of Annual General Meetings from 1930, though many between 1940 and 1958 are missing; lists of members, though these appear to have been issued intermittently; statements of accounts for the Society and its different funds, 1910 to 1966; and correspondence relating to the Society's activities from 1911, with a large number of gaps but including papers relating to the IMPLACABLE, 1915 to 1946, and to the VICTORY, 1922 to 1972.

Administrative / biographical background
The Society for Nautical Research was founded in 1910 to encourage research into subjects of naval and maritime interest. It led the campaign to preserve HMS VICTORY (1765) in dry dock at Portsmouth in 1922 and similar projects, including the unsuccessful attempt to save HMS IMPLACABLE ex DUGUAY-TROUIN (captured 1805) which was scuttled at sea in 1949. It played an important part in the foundation of the National Maritime Museum and of the Victory Museum, now part of the National Museum of the Royal Navy. It publishes quarterly 'The Mariner's Mirror', an historical journal of nautical interest.