The papers cover the period 1914-1965 and include papers relating to service in England, France and with British Army of the Rhine, 1914-1919 in particular 35 Division Artillery Signals; Iraq, including diary, 1920-1921; Nigeria, including field message book, 1924; Quetta, India, including earthquake diary, 1935; newspapers covering death of King George V, 1936; command of Northern Rhodesia Regt, Lusaka, 1937-1940, including scrap albums; command of 26 (East African) Infantry Brigade, East Africa and Abyssinia, 1940- 1941, including operation reports; command of 22 (East African) Infantry Brigade, Madagascar, 1942, including operation reports; command of 28 (East African) Infantry Brigade and 11 (East African) division, Burma and India, 1944-1946 including accounts of operations; General Officer Commanding East Africa, 1946- 1948, including official circulars, speeches and addresses; General Officer Commanding Aldershot Command, 1948-1951, including speeches and lectures; Representative on Military Staff Committtee, United Nations, 1951-1953, including diary; Col Commandant of Northern Rhodesia Regiment, King's African Rifles and Kenya Regiment, including correspondence, 1952-1964, committee papers and publications; papers relating to Army Cadet Force Association including minutes of meetings, 1956-1959; Inter-Parliamentary Union, including account of journey to Warsaw, Poland, 1959; maps, 1914-1943, including Western Front, Iraq and India, Nigeria and Madagascar.

Papers relating to his command of 1 Infantry Div, Anzio, Italy, 1944, dated 1943-1962, principally comprising correspondence and memoranda, 1943-1944; diary and typescript diary entries, 1943-1944; operation orders, tactical notes and maps, 1944; written accounts of operations carried out by 1 Div and individual regiments and battalions, 1944; correspondence relating to historical accounts of the landings, 1945-1962, notably Anzio by Wynford Vaughan Thomas (Longmans, London, 1961). Other papers relating to his life and career, 1920-1958, notably including an article by Penney on his service in Wazaristan, India, 1937, reprinted from the Royal Signals Quarterly Journal, Oct 1938 and Jan 1939; memoranda from General Staff, Shanghai, from the City Government of Shanghai and from W R Connor Green, British Embassy, Tokyo, concerning relations between the Chinese and Japanese, and the role of the British garrison in the protection of Shanghai, 1931-1933; diary, 1932, referring principally to matters affecting British troops in Shanghai; press cuttings, [1932]; anti-Japanese propaganda posters produced by the Shanghai Municipality National Salvation Committee to Resist Japan, [1932]; itinerary of Penney's movements in the Middle East and North Africa, 1941-1943; diary, 1943-1944, including description of Allied Forces HQ, Algiers, and reflections on the differences between US and British signals procedure; official and personal correspondence relating to his service as Director of Intelligence, HQ Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia, [1945].