The collection was compiled by Charles Morris Woodford, naturalist and First Resident Commissioner of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate from 1896 - 1915. The collection includes diaries, photographs, correspondence, sketches and research notes related to the natural history, geography and ethnography of the Solomon Islands and other Pacific Islands from 1884 - 1915, as well as family papers and documents related to the administration of Solomon Islands Protectorate. There are documents about relations between the missionaries and the traders, matters associated with labour and the alienation of land, economic activity and tourism. The collection includes Woodford's 'Journal of a voyage from Suva Fiji to the Gilbert Group' from 4 March 1884 - 22 June 1884 ; Woodford's diaries from 1886 - 1889 ; 140 photographs taken on the voyage to and residence in the Solomon Islands in 1886 ; photographs of Rennell Island and inhabitants signed by Northcote Deck c1909. Of significance are ten large photographs of various scenes of the Solomon Islands, c1901, some published in The discovery of the Solomon Islands by Alvaro de Mendana in 1568, by Lord Amherst of Hackney and Basil Thomson (1901).