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 fonds consists of records from the McGill University Chemistry Society including minutes (1902-1940); correspondence, lists of speakers, lecture announcements and other papers related to speakers (1984-1990); and society papers, with reference to B. Purves, J.T. Donald and W.C. Purdy (1972-1985).

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.

The McGill Women's Union fonds contains the administrative records of the student organization from 1980 to 1993. It includes some administrative files (information files) created by Margaret Gillet.

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.

Oliver's papers deal almost entirely with his work for the Royal Commission on Biculturalism and Bilingualism. Correspondence, minutes, reports and press releases document the Commission's meetings, organization, personnel, and finances. There are also briefs, reports of study groups, drafts of the final report, and files on individuals. Records of his Vice-principalship at McGill can be found in Record Group 3.

Student essay on "Heat Treatment of Aluminium Alloys", 1946.

These records consist of a ledger, 1877-1884, of an unidentified grist mill in the Eastern Townships.

Fonds consists of a photocopy of Kehoe's 93 page report on “English for the Non-English Mother-Tongue Students at McGill”. Also included are sections from Applied Linguistics and correspondence related to her contribution. Other miscellaneous materials concerning bilingualism and Kehoe’s Ph.D. dissertation.

The administrative papers of the League comprise minutes of directors' meetings, 1924-1930, accounts, 1924-1928, a bank book, 1928-1929, and a copy of the final report.