Sir William Archibald Howard Kelly, Admiral, 1873-1952
The consist of a draft of his memoirs which is very detailed until 1933; after this period, it has only a few notes and observations on Turkey. The diaries for 1899, 1901, 1903, 1905 to 1907, 1910, 1914 to 1916, T919 to 1921, 4923 to 1929 and 1931 to 1933 are also detailed. The correspondence forms two groups; the first, 1914 to 1917, includes letters from Earl Beatty (1871-1936), Admiral Tyrwhitt (1870-195T) and Lord Jellicoe (1859-1935); the second group, 194G to 1944, includes those from Admirals Cunningham (q.v.), Harwood (1888-1950) and Willis (1889-1976). Some notebooks, news cuttings and articles complete the collection.

Sir John Donald Kelly, Admiral of The Fleet,1871-1936
The papers were deposited on permanent loan by the Hon. David St. Clair Erskine in 1967. They consist of reports on the unsuccessful attack on the Goeben; on the Dardanelles, February to May 1915, and on a German raider in West Indian and South American waters, December 1916 to March 1917. There are orders relating to the Dardanelles, 1915, to the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, 1918, to the Chanak incident of 1922, to the Invergordon mutiny in 1931 and to Kelly's final commands. The letters are mainly official but the private correspondents include Prince Louis of Battenburg (1854-1921), 1903, Earl Beatty (1871-1936), 1918 and 1932, Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900- ), 1929, Sir Roger Keyes (1872-1945), 1930 to 1931, and Lord Chatfield (q.v. ), 1932 to 1936. In addition, a small collection of fifteen letters, 1831 to 1847, relate to Captain, later Vice-Admiral, William Kelly (ca. 1795-1874), and are mostly concerned with the attack on the forts of Tamatave, Madagascar, in 1845. William Kelly is believed to have been a relative of Sir John Kelly.

Administrative / biographical background
Howard Kelly, brother of Sir John Kelly (q.v.), served in the Temeraire and Cruiser in the Mediterranean between 1889 and 1892 and was promoted to lieutenant in 1894. From 1902 to 1904 he served in Somaliland, returning from the East Indies Station in 1906. He was in naval intelligence from 1907, promoted to captain in 1911 and was then naval attachee; in Paris for three years. In 1914 he was given command of the Gloucester and won distinction by his determined chase of the Goeben. He was Commodore of the Light Cruiser Squadron, 1917, and, in 1918, of the British Adriatic Force. Between 1919 and 1921 he was head of the Naval Mission to Greece and was promoted to rear-admiral in 1922. In the next year he commanded the First Battle Squadron and in 1925 the Second Cruiser Squadron. He was promoted to vice-admiral in 1927 and for the next two years he commanded the First Battle Squadron. After this he was second-in-command, Mediterranean Fleet, until 1930. In 1931 he became an admiral and went out to China until 1933, as Commander-in-Chief of the station. Kelly retired in 1936. He visited Australia in 1938 and then went to lecture in Canada in 1940. From that year until 1944 he was naval representative in Turkey. John (known as 'Joe') Kelly, brother of Sir (William) Howard Kelly (q.v.), entered the Navy in 1884, became a lieutenant in 1893, commander in 1904 and captain in 1911, serving on the Australian, Cape and China Stations. In 1914 he was captain of the light cruiser Dublin in the Mediterranean and attempted to locate and attack the Goeben. The Dublin later went to the Dardanelles and was for a short time in the Adriatic. Subsequently Kelly commanded the Devonshire and Weymouth on the South American Station and the Princess Royal in the Grand Fleet. After the war he became Director of the Operations Division in the Admiralty and was made rear-admiral in 1921. As such he commanded a force in the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora before going back to the Admiralty as Fourth Sea Lord. Two years as second-in-command, Mediterranean, followed this appointment and then a similar period as Admiral Commanding Reserves. After this Kelly expected to retire but in 1932 he was called upon to take over the command of the Atlantic Fleet (which was renamed the Home Fleet during this time) after the mutiny at Invergordon. His final command was as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, from 1934 to 1936.