The collection consists of a selection of records reflecting Sir Arthur Currie's tenure as Principal of McGill University from 1920 to 1933. His administration was marked by the establishment of the Faculty of Music, the School for Graduate Nurses, and the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research. Constructed during this period were Moyse Hall, the Roddick Gates, a Biology Building (now the F. Cyril James Administration Building), and additions to Royal Victoria College and Redpath Library. Currie died in office on 30 November 1933. His records form a part of the McGill University's executive and administrative records, RG2: Office of the Principal and Vice-Chancellor. The Principal is the academic head and chief administrative officer of the University. Under the original Charter of 1821, the Principal constituted with the Board of Governors and the Fellows (now the Senate) a body politic and corporate. Later amendments to the Charter and changes in the University statutes have not significantly altered the position of Principal. Ex officio, by virtue of his office, the Principal is also Vice-Chancellor of the University, a member of the Board of Governors and Chairman of the Senate. Frequently, it has been the Principal's vision and personality which have determined the course of McGill's development; therefore, the records not only document the administrative activities of the office, but also often reflect the character of the whole institution. Currie's records fall more or less into the three general series: external correspondence, internal administration and academic matters.

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.

Collection consists of 59 heraldic plaques featuring Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy badges for ships and naval installations.

The collection documents the experiences of Japanese Canadians in Montréal and in Canada, as well as Japanese Canadian cultural and social contributions, over an approximately 60 year period, mainly 1940-2000.

The collection contains records reflecting the activities of the JCCCM organization and often related to individuals and/or families, and includes correspondence, photographs, and a variety of printed materials. The collection also contains detailed biographical records, compiled during the 1980s, related to the Issei, Nisei, and Sansei as well as other non-Japanese individuals active in the community. In addition, there are approximately 150 tape recordings, transcripts, and oral histories; art work and cultural contributions done by members of the Japanese community; directories, newspapers, publications, pamphlets, and records; administrative records of the NAJC chapter in Montréal; as well as local and national NAJC and JCCS records.

The series consist of 1) publications; 2) biographical files; 3) general subject files; 4) Japanese Canadian Centennial Society (JCCS) files; and 5) NAJC/ Redress files; 6) Exhibits; 7) Photographs. Many of the files are arranged alphabetically or by subject.

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.

This volume is a circulating letter of the first graduating class in Agriculture; a class member would write his personal and career news addressed to the class in general and forward the book to the next person to do the same.

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.

Mazgelis's, Rubenstein's and Dolan's prize-winning stories are included in this archive.

The Grierson Collection was assembled by the Communications Department, McGill University, by soliciting, from a variety of sources, documentation on Grierson himself, on the institutions for which he worked (particularly the National Film Board of Canada), and on the history of documentary film. The core of the collection is from the Film Board, and consists of audio-visual production materials for films on Grierson and related topics; supplementing this are collections of documentation, and some personal papers (correspondence, notebooks, speeches), mostly obtained from associates of Grierson.

These materials comprise a microfilm of the Lande collection in Library and Archives Canada, as well as his publication Canadian Historical Documents and Manuscripts (Montréal, 1977-1982). A card index to the Lande Collection in Library and Archives Canada may be consulted at the University Archives.