This was the first Frederick Lanchester material to be received by what was then the Library of Lanchester College of Technology, Coventry and was donated by Lanchester's widow Dorothea in August 1961. Before this date the material had been consulted by Peter Kingsford for his book on Lanchester 'FW Lanchester - the life of an engineer' (published in 1960) and by Lanchester's brother George for his paper on Frederick for The Newcomen Society (1957).
A typed list of the items was produced by College Librarian Eric Baxter in 1966 in 'calendar' style, i.e. every item was described individually. His list also included an introduction, notes, and an index. The catalogue for this part of the Lanchester collection is based on the Baxter list.The items were divided into sub-series of subjects, which are:
LAN/1/1 Biographical and autobiographical
LAN/1/2 Aeronautical
LAN/1/3 The book 'Aircraft In Warfare'
LAN/1/4 Bombs
LAN/1/5 The Daimler Company
LAN/1/6 Gibraltar
LAN/1/7 The Lanchester Company
LAN/1/8 Optics
LAN/1/9 Photography
LAN/1/10 Sound
LAN/1/11 Units
LAN/1/12 Miscellaneous letters
LAN/1/13 Miscellaneous documents (scientific and technical)
LAN/1/14 Miscellaneous documents (general)
LAN/1/15 Verse
LAN/1/16 Photographs
LAN/1/17 Manuscripts of published and unpublished works
The original order of the material has been kept but it will be re-arranged to put it into date order and to meet archival standards.