16 bound volumes containing a very wide variety of miscellaneous and occasionally detailed material relating to Frederick Chesson's everyday activities and correspondence regarding: the Aborigines Protection Society, the London Emancipation Society and general matters concerning anti-slavery campaigns in Britain, America, Africa and Asia, free trade, peace and the Crimean war, electoral reform, women's rights, the Empire, Star and other newspapers, parliamentary business, and so on, including FC's opinions of the issues, orators and writers of the day, news from Europe, America, Africa and India, FC's transactions with many prominent political and religious leaders and campaigners from Britain and overseas, and personal details of some of them; also social, domestic and personal matters, including FC's family and his health, as well as numerous books, plays, operas, concerts and other entertainments, places he has visited, events he has witnessed, people he has met, and so on; news of George Thompson throughout; some of the volumes contain further details in the form of newspaper articles written by FC in his capacity as a journalist.
There is a variety of notebooks and printed diaries, with handwritten entries and some newspaper cuttings. The whole period from June 1854 to June 1870 is covered, with the exception of May 1868-May 1869, for which there is no diary.