Personal and military papers of Major General Sir Robert Edward Laycock, 1923-1968, chiefly relating to service with Special Service Brigade and as Chief of Combined Operations, 1940-1946. Includes papers on volunteering for Special Service Brigade, including completed application forms for volunteer Commando officers, 1940. Papers on Special Service Brigade training 1940-1941, including gas, bayonet and signalling training. Memoranda, reports, instructions and other papers, 1940-1942, relating to LAYFORCE (commanded by Laycock in the Middle East), including papers on the Folbot Section (later to become Special Boat Service). Papers on Special Service Brigade, [1941-1946], including memoranda, reports, minutes, papers on their reorganisation, disbandment and the future of Combined Operations, also including papers belonging to Lord George Jellicoe relating to Special Service Brigade in the Middle East; reports and other papers on Special Service Brigade operations, notably Operation TORCH, (the invasion of North West Africa, Nov 1942) and Operation HUSKY, (the invasion of Sicily, Jun 1943). Laycock's official and personal correspondence,1923-1968, chiefly relating to Special Service Brigade. Lectures and speeches to and on Special Service Brigade, chiefly by Laycock. Draft publications, scripts and press cuttings relating to Laycock and Special Service Brigade. Memoirs and accounts of Commando action, including parts of Robert Edward Laycock's memoirs and memoirs of members of 'G' Troop, 7 Commando. Papers on Laycock standing as Conservative parliamentary candidate for Bassetlaw in the 1945 general collection and on his refusal to stand for the 1947 bye-election. Papers relating to Laycock's time as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Malta. Poems by Laycock.

Papers, 1881-1926; notably war diaries of the 3 Hussars during World War One, 1914-1919; private diary of Willcox, 1914; intelligence summaries with translated extracts from German documents, 1917-1918; typescript account of the 3 Hussars at Warneton, Belgium, Oct 1914; typescript account of the action of the 3 Hussars at Liez, France, March 1918 and near Hourges, France, Apr 1918; aerial photographs showing trench network, Beaucamp, France, 1916; copy of a diary by Willcox compiled during the siege of Ladysmith, South Africa, with two popular printed commemorative volumes describing the siege, 1899-1900; diary by Willcox of a visit by him as an observer of German army manoeuvres, Berlin area, with photographs, 1909; letters sent by Willcox to his parents and other relatives, 1881-1900; photographs of India, South Africa during the Boer War, in 1910 and the Western Front during World War One, showing groups of soldiers, equipment, the interiors and exteriors of buildings, including in Pretoria, of military exercises, parades, preparation for possible gas attack and of French chateaux, [1889-1919]; various papers compiled by Willcox during the compilation of his history of the 3 Hussars including operational summaries, biographical information and drawings and photographs, with reviews of Willcox's publications, 1908-1926; watercolours of the French landscape during World War One; manuscript hunting journal including detailed diaries and records of pig-sticking, tiger shooting and other hunts in Africa, Scotland and India, 1894-1932; colour illustrations of soldiers in various antique constumes.