Volumes - This class contains autobiographies and memorials, scrapbooks and bound documents of a biographical nature, eighteenth to twentieth centuries. Among the autobiographical works are a memorial of the services of Lieutenant John Starke (d.1793), 1775 to 1777, during which time he was the commander of the armed schooner MARIA at the Siege of Quebec and during the operations on Lake Champlain; a volume relating to the services of Commodore (later Vice-Admiral) Sir George Collier (1738-1795 in America, 1776 to 1779, compiled from original journals and papers by G J Rainier with corrections in Collier's own hand; the memoirs of James Trevenen (1760-1790) a lieutenant in the British Navy and post-captain in the Russian service, written in 1805 and 1806, by Admiral Sir Charles Vinicombe Penrose (1759-1830) (this has been published in an abbreviated form in C.C. Lloyd and R.C. Anderson, eds., A Memoir of James Trevenen (Navy Records Society, 1959); a statement of service of Lieutenant David O'Brien Casey (1779-1853), 1789 to 1839, including an account of the mutiny in the HERMIONE, 1797; 'Recollections of Service Afloat and Shore' by Lieutenant William Clarke, Royal Marines (1784-1862), 1803 to 1816, written in 1839; and the typescript memoirs of Captain Frederick W Dean (1868-1921). Scrapbooks and books of cuttings include an album of letters, certificates, cuttings and pictures, 1839 to 1875, relating to the career of Rear-Admiral Sherard Osborn (1822-1875); a scrapbook and photograph album of Captain J K Chase of the Bengal Pilot Service, 1887 to 1932; and a scrapbook, containing photographs and cuttings, of Assistant- Paymaster (later Commander) Arthur Sennett Whyham (d.1960), 1901 to 1921. Other volumes include a private account book, 1784 to 1816, of Captain Nathaniel Portlock (1748?-1817), which includes reference to the expedition to the north-west coast of North America, 1785 to 1788, and to his service with the Poole Sea Fencibles, 1803 to 1806; an album containing the service papers, 1848 to 1893, of Lieutenant Thomas Pratt (1832?-1916), who served mainly as a boatswain; and a bound collection of flimsies, 1892 to 1925, of Engineer Rear-Admiral Mark Rundle (1871-1958).

Administrative / biographical background
Biography - volumes