Most of these papers consist of titles and estate papers relating to the lands of Carntyne and Shettleston in Glasgow. They are particularly important for the history of the colliery at Westmuir from the death of John Gray of Carntyne in 1796 until that of his grandson, the Rev John Hamilton Gray, in 1867, but there is material from both before, and in particular from after that period. Robert Gray (d.1833) was a resident landowner, and an enthusiastic coalmaster. Though not all the Westmuir records have survived for the period of his ownership, it is possible to gain a full picture of what took place at Carntyne. His son John Hamilton Gray became vicar of Bolsover in 1829, and from then until his death, was an absentee landlord. This resulted in an enormous amount of correspondence between Gray and the colliery manager, augmented in 1854 when John Anstruther Thomson, his son-in-law, took nominal charge of the estate. All the letters between Gray and Anstruther Thomson have been included in the business correspondence (16-40). In addition to this and to the normal accounts and sales records, there is a fine series of reports on the colliery by David Landale, the mining engineer (90).