Letters written by Third Earl Hugh Fortescue to Joseph Lloyd Brereton concerning educational proposals/activities, political and rural issues and personal matters. The pair had a life-long friendship having met as neighbours in West Buckland where they opened a proprietory boarding school for farmer's sons. Fortescue was a considerable landowner, concerned with the welfare of rural England and sympathetic to the unsectarian religious views of Brereton. He became Brereton's first convert to the importance of middle-class education and a loyal supporter of his attempts to establish middle-class schools. The pair championed the "proprietory principle" for free enterprise in education. Other letters written to Brereton are included as well as covers/envelopes addressed to him.

The collection also includes sixty letters shared between the Fortescue and Brereton families between 1867 and 1869.