The papers of Kathleen and Millicent Coleman comprise three classes of material: the private papers of the sisters and the Coleman family, 1842-1957; records relating to the National Children's Home, 1935-1981 largely CLOSED; and the Pestalozzi Village Trust, 1948-1989. Personal papers include a diary and pharmacopoeias, correspondence, examination certificates, photographs and printed books, 1842-1957, notably including a detailed manuscript medical diary describing life on board ship and a medical practice in Africa, 1842-1844, probably compiled by John Albert Sidney Coleman, grandfather of Kathleen and Millicent Coleman; pharmacopoeias containing remedies and prescriptions, with printed pharmacopoeias, compiled by Mark Coleman and others, reflecting the transition of the Coleman family business from patent remedies to modern pharmacy, 1851-1894; correspondence with Kathleen and Millicent Coleman, mainly descriptions of daily life in the National Children's Home and describing psychological testing of the children, 1927-1948 (CLOSED); family correspondence and legal documents including letting agreements and deeds of partnership, the will of Mathew Coleman, the sisters' great uncle, and relating to their father and his career, letters containing family news and gossip, 1845-1928; examination certificates and prize lists relating to the education of Kathleen and Millicent Coleman, 1922-1933; photographs of the Coleman family during the 1890s, during World War One and of Kathleen and Millicent Coleman on holiday, [1928], of Lady Eleanor Holles School, 1921-1933, group photographs of students and staff in King's College London Department of History, 1929-1955, photographs of various National Children's Home establishments, 1934-1957; a small collection of printed books concerned with the history, customs and government of London and the Home Counties, [1945-1985] (Boxes 70-74, now on open access in the Archive reading room).

The CLOSED records of the National Children's Home, 1935-1981, notably comprising Vocational Guidance Record Sheets, consisting of files on individual children that included intelligence test results, memory tests and individual comments, arranged in alphabetical order, 1938-1964 (Boxes 1-23); test results and evaluations of named children for tests organised by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology including the Porteus Maze Test and scoring sheets, 1957-1960 (Boxes 24-28); psychological evaluations of children at different branches of the children's home, notably in Cardiff, Harpenden, Nottingham and Glasgow, including individual test results and assessments with broad statistics and educational recommendations by visitors, 1942-1963 (Boxes 29-40); pupil record cards containing biographical information, aptitude tests and psychological test results for children at various homes, [1948-1960] (Boxes 41-42); material relating to the Brentwood College of Education including a working party on syllabuses, staff lists, the relationship with the University of London Institute of Education, manuscript notes and some psychological test results of children engaged in the so-called Gifted Child Study, 1971-1974 (Boxes 43-44); material relating to vocational aptitude and the placement of older children in trades and professions such as the armed forces and Civil Service, notably including psychologists' reports, 1935-1965 (Boxes 45-56); questionnaires of 18 year-old former residents conducted in 1954-1956 (Box 57); material relating to European refugees resident in the NCH including named children and correspondence with the Central Committee for Refugees, 1942-1949 (Boxes 58-59); general correspondence with Millicent Coleman relating to local authorities, staff and the emigration of children to Australia, 1951-1962; manuscript visitation report book assessing particular homes, 1946-1949; report on the incidence of enuresis (incontinence) in homes, 1946-1950; publicity material mainly created at the time of the centenary and on other children's charities, 1951-1981; careers and apprenticeship literature, 1938-1954; photographs and negatives of students and buildings, 1938-1939 (Boxes 60-62); psychological testing materials including test cards displaying words and pictures, [1958] (Boxes 63-69).

The records of the Pestalozzi Village Trust, 1948-1989, comprise typescript notes compiled by Millicent Coleman, who served on its governing Council. These consist mainly of Council minutes and supporting material, 1948-1989; Committee minutes including Finance and Management Committees, 1953-1985; Annual Reports and Accounts, 1961-1974; policy reports on the development and strategic direction of the Village, 1959-1973; correspondence with Millicent Coleman regarding Trust business and liaison with the National Children's Home, 1953-1985.

Papers of Edgar Prestage, 1881-1949, largely relating to his work on the history of Portugal, 16th-19th centuries. Letters to Prestage from various correspondents, 1886-1948 and undated, relate to a variety of subjects pertaining to his work, publications and translations, sources and interpretation, and also to acquaintances and contemporaries, other publications, and some personal matters such as correspondents' health and families, and include six letters from Fortunato de Almeida, 1917-1933 and undated; 24 letters from Joao Lucio de Azevedo, 1914-1933 and undated; 13 letters from Pedro Augusto de S Bartolomeu de Azevedo, 1910-1927 and undated; six letters from Henrique de Gama Barros, 1908-1925; five letters from Carlos Roma du Bocage, 1915-1918; three letters from Sir Richard Francis Burton, 1888-1889, and 12 letters from Lady Isabel Burton, 1894-1896, relating to Sir Richard's translation of Camoens; 22 letters from Julio de Castilho, 1908-1918; nine letters from Harold Castle, 1903-1906; six letters from Fidelino de Figueiredo, 1911-1918 and undated; eight letters from James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, 1905-1919; five letters from Anselmo Braamcamp Freire, 1905-1919; two letters from Pieter Geyl, 1923, 1926; letter from William Ewart Gladstone, 1893, congratulating Prestage on Letters of a Portuguese nun ; ten letters from Edward Heawood, 1922-1933; letter from Benjamin Jowett, 1887, explaining entrance examinations at Oxford; five letters from Margery Lane, 1927 and undated; six letters from Manuel de Oliveira Lima, 1910-1927; two letters, 1928, 1932, from Manuel II, King of Portugal, concerning the monarch's bibliography of early Portuguese books; eight letters from Jacinto Octavio Picon, 1911-1920; seven letters from Jacinto Inacio de Brito Rebelo, 1895-1908; eight letters from Jaime Batalha Reis, 1894-1896, 1904-1905, 1922; 12 letters from Francisco Rodrigues, 1913-1918, 1930 and undated; two letters from John Ruskin, 1886 and undated, on the study of architecture; seven letters from Antonio Maria Jose de Melo Cesar e Meneses, 5th Conde de Sabugosa, 1905-1913; five letters from Luis Teixeira de Sampayo, 1921-1928; letter from Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, 1905, congratulating Prestage on Eca de Queiroz's The sweet miracle ; five letters from Georg Schurhammer, 1930-1936; five letters from Wilhelm Storck, 1894-1895; five letters from Herbert Thurston, 1905-1913; ten letters from Pedro Tovar de Lemos, 2nd Conde de Tovar, 1916-1927 and undated; 13 letters from Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcellos, 1895-1896, 1907-1922, and 11 letters from her husband, Joaquim de Vasconcellos, 1897, 1908-1925; six letters from Afonso Lopes Vieira, 1910, 1914, 1927 and undated; five letters from Tomas Maria de Almeida Manuel de Vilhena, 8th Conde de Vila Flor, 1925-1929 and undated; letter from Oscar O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, [1892], regretting he cannot send a copy of his unnamed play (perhaps Lady Windermere's Fan ) as it has not yet been published. There is also a letter of 1881 from Antonio Candido Goncalves Crespo to Maria Amalia Vaz de Carvalho (father and mother of Prestage's wife). Ephemera includes signatures of Gomes Eannes Azurara, William Wordsworth, [? Isaac] Disraeli and Samuel Wilberforce; Christmas cards; the visiting card of S T P Kruger, President of the Transvaal Republic, 1903; menus, including the House of Commons Coronation luncheon in Westminster Hall, 1902; a ticket to the coronation of Edward VII, 1902; and an invitation to a party at Windsor Castle, 1912. Otherwise the collection comprises research notes and transcriptions on various subjects and sources, including Restoration period Portugal; Sousa Coutinho; Portuguese in Africa, Brazil and Asia; the War of the Spanish Succession; 17th century Portuguese history, including diplomacy; the sermons of Father Antonio Vieira SJ; Portuguese bibliographies prepared by Prestage; annotated typescripts on the Portuguese in Abyssinia down to 1543, aspects and results of Portuguese colonisation, and Portuguese reminiscences (1948); Prestage's 'The Mode of Government in Portugal during the Restoration Period'; photographs of Portuguese fortresses in Morocco; notebook on 'Analyse das "Cartas Familiares" '; copies of letters of F de Sousa, including his embassies to France and Rome; copies of letters of Sir R Southwell, English ambassador to Lisbon; material relating to relations between Spain and Portugal; pamphlets and articles of Prestage; proofs for a chapter entitled 'L'Intevention Anglaise dans la Peninsule Iberique', in an envelope addressed to Prestage and labelled 'D Fernando & the Holy See by E Perroy'.