The collection consists of original manuscripts collected by C. Fox Smith, together with research material that she received from various correspondents, as well as a few articles and newspaper cuttings. It provides useful material for the study of sailing ships of the nineteenth century and includes some charts of eastern waters, published in the 1860s.

The original manuscripts include logs kept by Henry Ridley James as a midshipman with Green's Blackwall Line on the BLACKWALL, PRINCE OF WALES and MONARCH, 1851-1854. There are remark books and abstract logbooks kept by Frederick William Corner as mate and then master during voyages to Australia on the RODNEY and HESPERUS, 1887-1896. There are also logs kept by different mates on the CITY OF ADELAIDE during voyages across the Pacific, 1891-1901.

The autobiographical material provided by George Sorrell and Thomas Young provides a good general picture of life at sea towards the end of the nineteenth century. This is augmented by information given to C. Fox Smith by correspondents who often lent her copies of their logs and photographs. There are also letters relating to the restoration of HMS VICTORY, 1920 to 1929.

Administrative / biographical background
Cicely Fox Smith was born at Lymm, Cheshire, in 1882, the younger daughter of Richard J. Smith, a barrister, and his wife Alice Wilson Smith née Wolstencroft. She went to school in Manchester and her first book ‘Songs of Greater Britain’ was published in 1899. While living in Canada between 1911 and 1913, she was inspired by stories from the heyday of sailing ships. She became very knowledgeable about the lives of seafarers during the nineteenth century and wrote a number of books on this subject, beginning with ‘Sailortown Days’, published in 1923. Her books incorporated shanties and old verses that she had collected, and some were based on original logs and memoirs. ‘All the Way Round: Sea Roads to Africa’, published in 1938, was written following her voyage on a Union-Castle Line vessel. Her poetry appeared in a wide range of magazines and newspapers. She was also a contributor to 'Punch' magazine for many years. After becoming well known, much of her poetry was re-published and formed the basis of song recordings. She died at a nursing home near Exeter in 1954.