The collection consists of sixty-one volumes and nineteen boxes. Some items have been added to the collection since 1970. It relates in the main to the Royal Navy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but also includes papers on merchant shipping and on the French, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish and Venetian navies. One of the earliest is a volume containing documents written in the seventeenth century relating to the part played by Sir Thomas Fairfax (1612-1671) in the English Civil War; a copy of the account by Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618) of his expedition to Orinoco, 1617, and an 'Explanation of Sea terms', a shortened version of the 'Seaman's Dictionary', ca.1620, by Sir Henry Mainwaring (1587-1653). Connected with merchant shipping is a group of eight Bills of Sale of shares in merchant ships, seven of which are dated between 1637 and 1643. There are four volumes of orders, patents and instructions relating to the administration of the Navy after the Restoration, including those issued to the Navy Board in 1662 and to the Victualling Board in 1683. Of the same period are the letterbook of the Chatham dockyard Commissioner, 1670, and an account of the construction of docks at Plymouth, 1698.

The building and equipment of ships for the Navy is the subject of several volumes: one contains dimensions and costs of His Majesty's ships by William Keltridge, 1675, with later additions; another, by Edward Battine (fl.1679-1692), is entitled 'The Method of Building, Rigging, Apparelling and Furnishing His Majesty's Ships of War', 1689; a later notebook, dated 1793, contains illustrations and explanations related to shipbuilding. Detailed estimates of the 'charge' of maintaining the Navy are given in several volumes, 1672, 1689, 1701, 1800. One provides the establishment of men and guns for each ship, corrected to 1685; five contain lists of ships and vessels in the Navy, 1688, 1701, 1750, ca.1797, 1846. Numerous other notes and lists on the establishment of the Navy, some made by Anderson himself, supplement these originals. Naval operations are represented by the letterbooks of Commodore Curtis Barnett (d.1746), 1744 to 1746, when he was in command of the British squadron in the East Indies. Less official records include some early journals: the 'Discourse of a voyage' made by the captain of the Fellowship of Bristol, employed on the King's service on the coast of Ireland, 1641 to 1642; extracts from journals relating to the proceedings of Prince Rupert's fleet, 1648 to 1650, 1651 to 1652, 1652; 'The daily motion and public transactions of His Majesty's fleet' under Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle, 1666; a copy of the journal of Captain (later Admiral) John Narbrough (1640-1688) on board the Prince, 1672, and St Michael, 1673, with accounts of the Battle of Solebay, 1672; an account of a voyage to the coasts of Africa, the Straits of Magellan, Brazil, Guyana and the Caribbean islands, 1695 to 1696; a copy of the journal of Sir George Rooke (1650-1709), 1700 to 1703 (printed by the Navy Records Society, ed. 0. Browning, 1897); and a copy of 'A Pirate's Journal' kept by William Davidson (d.1797), 1788 to 1789.

Administrative / biographical background
Roger Charles Anderson, Litt.D. (1883-1976), was a founder member of the Society for Nautical Research and, from its foundation until 1962, a Trustee of the Museum and Chairman of Trustees from 1959 to 1962. He was a frequent contributor to The Mariner's Mirror, of which he was editor for several periods and the author of numerous publications on maritime subjects.