Joseph Goulding Sproule was born in Toronto, Ontario, in June 1897, the younger brother of Hugh and Noble Sproule. Sproule enlisted in Toronto, Ontario, in October 1915 with the 81st Battalion and served overseas in France with the 3rd Battalion Canadian Machine Gun Corps. He was discharged at the end of the war and returned to Canada in 1919. The collection currently consists of more than twenty five letters, as well as numerous postcards and photographs.