This is the largest section in the collection. It consists chiefly of personal correspondence received from friends and relatives, including a sequence of letters sent to Dorothy Needham by her husband Joseph during his visits abroad, and material documenting D N’s involvement with a wide range of charitable, humanitarian and political causes. There is also important correspondence relating to her career, 1949-55. Other items of interest include a brief autobiographical account written for Women Scientists: the Road to Liberation, ed. D Richter (Macmillan, 1982) and a hand-written and illustrated poem by F G Hopkins celebrating the Needhams’ marriage in 1924.