The collection is small but diverse. It has a broad engineering theme. Material ranges from an early proposal for the UK's first landscaped cemetery and specifications for the development of the Kidderpore Docks in Calcutta, India, to architectural drawings of churches in Derbyshire and copies of correspondence between Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) and John Scott Russell (1808-1882) about the Great Eastern steamship. Despite the lack of overall coherence, the collection contains several items of national and international significance.

The collection was donated to the Library in the early 1970s by John Hollingworth, whose father was resident engineer to Henry Brunel (1842-1903).

Size: 2 boxes, c 90 items.

A catalogue providing contents detail of the Hollingworth Collection is available in PDF format.

View images of the construction and launch of the SS Great Eastern in the Archives & Research Digital Collections.