The fonds present extremely rich source for the study of Montreal and Quebec social and legal history. The fonds (mainly 1820-1890) comprises of judicial diaries or judges' bench books, which contain unique information: the opinions and memoranda of judges and lawyers of the Lower Canada and the Quebec Superior Court written down in the course of trials. They reflect the judge's interpretation of the law, his reaction to arguments and they show the background to official verdicts. The fonds contain bench books of Judges Robert Mackay (1871-1882), Andrew Stuart (1859-1885), Frederick Torrance (1869-1880). There are also record books of several law firms including Rose and Holmes (1840-1850), and Torrance and Morris (1850-1875). Included is also administrative correspondence, factums on various Montreal judges and lawyers, dockets and other records of law firms, legal authority books, commonplace books and other notes of individual lawyers. Present is also small number of lecture notes by lecturers in the Faculty of Law, student notes, scrapbooks as well as legal notes of unknown provenance. The bench books are in bound volume arranged in chronological order, the correspondence and authorities books are arranged by name or subject. There are contemporary indexes to the bench books of F. Torrance and R. Mackay.

Collection consists of menus acquired individually by the library. Menus date back to 1877, but most of the menus are twentieth century. The bulk of menus are from Montreal-area restaurants and hotels, representing French, Quebecois, and other styles of cuisine such as Indian. Some menus are from specific dinners given at hotels, special events, or in honour of dignitaries, such as a dinner for Edward, Prince of Wales, 1919. A subset of menus relate specifically to travel and include train dining car menus and steamship menus.

A large portion of the collection is concerned with the growth of the Medical Library at McGill. Other than the Catalogue of Books from the Library of the Medical Faculty of McGill College which dates from 1845, the earliest preserved records are the handwritten Library Committee reports of Dr. Francis Shepherd, dating from 1880. The textual material includes early library reports, surveys, information about library staff, finance, gifts, procedures, as well as information regarding the Osler Library and departmental building plans and renovations. The collection also includes correspondence, notes, photographs, and artifacts associated with 'McGill Medical Men' including: James "King" Cook, Robert Palmer Howard, William Wright, Robert Lea MacDonnell, Richard Lea MacDonnell, Herbert Stanley Birkett, and others. There are many reprints in the collection – some bound into volumes, and many that include signatures and written notes. The collection also includes photographs, scrapbooks, and glass lantern slides (some of which are from World War One), books, and theses. The Medical Library's accession records, index cards, and journal cards are also preserved in the collection, still housed in their original catalogue drawers (see Series 7). The collection includes various announcements, university calendars and directories related to the Faculty of Medicine, as well as communication, meeting minutes, and essays belonging to the McGill Medical Society (1884-1907), the McGill Reporting Society (1926-1951), and the Montreal Dermatological Society (1930-1951). Lastly, the collection includes miscellaneous textual materials related to McGill and the Faculty of Medicine, for instance McGill student attendance cards from 1828-1872 (with course name and professor details).

Half of these records consist of printed annual announcements (including Canadian Medical Register) from 1914 to 1961. The remainder consists of a number of files on "old controversies" stripped from the MCC files in 1955 and sent to Dr. D. Sclater Lewis. Some of the controversies concerned a move to amalgamate MCC examinations with final-year university medical examinations, 1941; the status of homeopathic practitioners, 1923-1940; registration in the U.K., 1914-1925; the petition of returning military medical officers to take the MCC licence without examination, 1919; and control of specialists by the MCC, 1934-1935.

These are various business papers of Simon McTavish and include partnership agreements with William and Duncan McGillivray, William Hallowell, Roderick McKenzie, Angus Shaw and James Hallowell, 1806 and drafts of agreement for seven years between McTavish, Frobisher and Company and John Fraser of London, Simon McGillivray and John Tullon, 1805.

The collection documents the involvement of McGill faculty, students, alumni, and staff during the Second World War. It contains information on 5568 men and women on active service, including 295 women. It also provides information on the 298 dead, 52 prisoners of war, and 629 recipients of medals.

The greater portion consists of folders, index cards, newspaper clippings, correspondence, and photographs of individual soldiers and civilians. Index cards, documents and photographs were created and accumulated by Fetherstonhaugh and placed in alphabetical order within specific categories. The collection contains four distinct series: index cards; textual documents, including newspaper clippings; correspondence and articles arranged by subject; and photographs. The first series contains subseries reflecting Fetherstonhaugh’s original subdivision categories.

The index cards are arranged in the following groupings:

-Subversive activities
-Killed
-Prisoners of war
-University staff
-Macdonald College
-Army course
-COTC
-US
-General list A-H
-General list I-Mc
-General list M-Z
-Returned from active service
-Photos in extension file
-Photos on loan
-Women
-Civil

Other files in the collection include correspondence and newspaper clippings arranged by particular subjects; correspondence and newspaper clippings concerning the McGill War Memorial Campaign, 1947-1949; Fetherstonhaugh's account book of income and expenditures, and some vouchers, 1942-1946; McGill News articles, 1942-1946; correspondence, memoranda, invoices, reviews, and newspaper clippings, 1947-1948, concerning the book McGill University at War, 1914-1918; 1939-1945.

This collection is an artificial collection containing archival material related to McGill University. The material in this collection was created over time by McGill administration, staff, faculty, and students, between roughly 1800 and 2019. The subject of the material varies, but the collection generally documents the activities of the university and its staff, and the experiences of McGill students, both during their studies and after graduation.

The collection is arranged by form/genre into 7 series: 01 Documents, 02 Ephemera, 03 Scrapbooks and notebooks, 04 Graphic materials, 05 Audiovisual materials, 06 Textiles, 07 Artifacts. This arrangement was chosen because of the collection’s size, and because it was artificially created by the University’s archives by combining many smaller collections and fonds.

Information about the university bodies, student groups, or people represented in the collection is found in the statement of responsibility and scope and content fields at the file or item level.

The McGill Poster Collection documents posters and ephemera announcing campus activities, primarily in the 1970s with some 1980s and 1990s material present.