The papers have been sorted and listed in an arrangement that follows as closely as possible that employed in the two previous guides to the Anti-Slavery Society's Papers. The second decennial accession consists of papers coming into or originating in the Society's office between 1951 and 1961, together with a considerable amount of material of earlier years and a very small amount no longer required by the Society of the immediately succeeding years. The present collection of papers falls into four groups, corresponding to the D, G, H and J sections of the earlier papers: section D continues the twentieth century series of correspondence, section G the papers most conveniently arranged for consultation according to the territory or subject to which they refer, section H the papers concerned with the Welfare of Africans in Europe and section J the accumulation of newspaper cuttings.

Where a number had been given by the Society to a particular file this is added at the end of the description of the file, e.g. [A 13].