Collection mainly focuses on material generated by the City of Leeds Training College and Carnegie Physical Training College. These include handbooks and prospectuses of the colleges dating from 1913 to 1970s, documents relating to the early years of Carnegie College, Carnegie College trip to Berlin Olympics in 1936. training college magazine ‘The Owl’ from 1930s, donations from alumni from various period, military items from 1940s when college was an Army Training Centre.

The donation contains ten 16mm and one 8mm films showing Carnegie College of Physical Training shot by Ambrose Congdon, a keen amateur filmmaker, during his time at Carnegie in 1936-38. Congdon caught on film his fellow students at work and play, including shots of Mr and Mrs Major relaxing in their garden. He also filmed the beginning of land clearances for the 1938 extensions to Carnegie College. The films capture the 1937 Festival of Youth. There is also a photograph/scrap album from the same period. Included are letters received by Congdon during the months after he and his contemporaries left Carnegie.