This series comprises the confidential foreign affairs correspondence of W.P. Crozier. Many of the materials are bundles of correspondence and reports sent to Crozier by correspondents. Crozier collected these materials, adding his own notes and materials about the editorial and business affairs of the Manchester Guardian. Most of the materials are marked confidential or secret. Many have been translated from Hebrew and a small number are in French, German, and Hebrew.
The correspondence is largely concerned with the Zionist movement, particularly in Palestine. There are significant materials relating to the creation of Jewish settlements in Palestine, the efforts of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and debates about the creation of a Jewish state. With the growing persecution of Jews under the Third Reich, a large portion of the correspondence concerns the refugee crisis of Jews who fled to Palestine and were interned in detention camps. There are also materials relating to the defence of Palestine during the Second World War, Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine, and the Middle East more broadly, including Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Egypt. Crozier's primary source of information regarding Palestine and the Middle East was Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier, a Jewish historian and long-time professor at the University of Manchester who frequently sent Crozier bundles of documents. The series also contains materials from Chaim Weizmann, another University of Manchester professor and Zionist who later became the first President of Israel, and Moshe Shertok [later Sharett], secretary of the Jewish Agency and later Prime Minister of Israel.
The series also contains materials regarding foreign affairs during the Second World War. There is correspondence concerning diplomatic and military action in Russia, Germany, France, Japan, the United States, and most of the countries involved in the war. Crozier's primary correspondents for foreign affairs were Charles Lambert, Alexander Werth, and Marcel Fodor. The series contains interviews with prominent figures such as Harold MacMichael, High Commissioner for Palestine, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Sir Winston Churchill, William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Anthony Eden, David Lloyd George, and Walter Guiness, 1st Baron Moyne. There are also clippings from publications such as the Zionist Review and the New Statesman and Nation, including publications from South Africa and Palestine.
The remainder of the series concerns domestic affairs during the war, including air raid reports, home security reports, rationing, the evacuation of British children, and the wartime operations of the Manchester Guardian.