The collection comprises correspondence, mainly concerning meteorological readings and Daniell's religious beliefs, lecture notebooks and printed pamphlets on meteorology and the battery, certificates of membership of learned societies, and obituaries and biographies of Daniell, 1821-1990. Notably including correspondence between Daniell and friends and colleagues such as Charles Babbage, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, University of Cambridge, Charles James Blomfield, Bishop of London, Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, engineer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, Michael Faraday, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, chemist, John Frederic William Herschel, astronomer, James Clark Ross, polar navigator, principally concerning meteorology and meteorological instruments, the chemistry of batteries, the publication of Daniell's books and articles, the management of the Royal Society, London, Daniell's religious beliefs, 1821-1857; manuscript copies of lectures delivered by Daniell including at King's College London and the Military School of the East India Company, Addiscombe, Surrey, 1831-1845; printed articles and pamphlets by Daniell or reviews of his work, including On voltaic combinations (London, 1836), reviews of Meteorological essays and observations (London, 1823), 1823-1860; membership certificates of Daniell to various learned societies including National Institute for the Promotion of Science, Washington, US, 1839-1845; obituaries and biographies of Daniell, 1845-1990.

Experimental notes, working papers, correspondence and lecture summaries compiled by Charles Wheatstone, 1836-1875, and photographs collected by him in that period. Notably including papers relating to the development and testing of the telegraph, [1836-1960]; descriptions of experiments and test results concerning the measurement of electromotive forces and electrical potential, [1840-1875]; experimental observations on the nature of magnetism, electricity and thermodynamics, including electromagnet design, batteries and dynamos, [1834-1855]; working papers relating to optics including experiments into refraction, colouration of compounds and polarisation, [1850-1875]; drafts of lectures on sound and musical instruments prepared by Wheatstone, [1832-1837]; material relating to the management of the Wheatstone collection of scientific instruments and library, 1890-1992; biographical material relating to the life of Wheatstone, the invention of the telegraph and Wheatstone's musical instrument manufacturing business, with unrelated newspapers, 1757-1975; stereoscopic photographs and glass negatives taken by Roger Fenton, Samuel Buckle, Jules Duboscq and others, featuring landscapes, still lifes, panoramic scenes of cities including Paris and Moscow and the interior and exterior of the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, Sydenham, 1851, and especially the Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1855, [1850-1901]; artefacts from Department of Physics, King's College London, including demonstration equipment, telegraph apparatus, a nail fiddle and other prototype musical instruments, [1834-1875]; exhibition of scientific and musical instruments, [1834-1875].