The volume contains triplicates of eighteen business letters from Thomas Ashton & Sons of Manchester, cloth merchants, to the following correspondents: Messrs Kelsall, Hoare & Co., Calcutta (10 items); Ewart, Lyon & Co. and Ewart, Tatham & Co., Bombay (7 items); and Rattibones, Worthington & Co., Shanghai (1 item).
There is also a letter from J. Rankine Finlayson of Bowdon to Henry Guppy of the John Rylands Library, concerning the deposit of the copybook, 23 June 1935; and a newscutting of an article by Finlayson (see below).