Almost entirely divorced from the development of industrial-sized machine tools, the evolution of small, high-precision watchmakers' lathes took some interesting turns - including this Alcock, a dead-end "Swiss Universal" and "English Mandrel" (an interchangeable term) model. The design was introduced during the 1700s, possibly by the inventive watchmaker Vauscher, based in what was then the centre of the trade in the Swiss town of Fleurier.
The John Alcock lathe looks to be very similar to those marked as being by J & T Jones and Grimshaw. Hence, the writer concludes that there is a strong possibility that the Alcock would have been made in Prescot, a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside. Unknown to the present residents, the town was, from the late 1700s into the late 1800s, once the centre of a thriving high-class manufactory of watches, clocks and associated equipment. We learn from the town's archive that watchmaking was introduced into Prescot by a Huguenot refugee from France called Woolrich. The skills were picked up by the town's blacksmiths with much of the the work being carried out in private houses. One of the best watchmakers (a man who also held the town's position of constable and overseer of the poor) was one John Aiken who, in 1795, said 'The town produces the best in the world.'
The watch trade in Prescot developed until there were hundreds of small workshops where either parts were made, or watches constructed from parts organised within assembly trays. Hence, it is only logical that, in association with this trade, one or more makers of lathes for watchmakers would also have thrived in the area - with John Alcock and J & T Jones among them.
Another very similar looking lathe was the London-made Haswell, this too having the slide rest mounted on a flat plate instead of the more usual bar-type square or rectangular form.
Archibald Haswell set up business as a watchmaker in 1835, with Robert Haswell joining him in 1844. In 1858, the business was listed as a 'watch tool warehouse' and based at 49 Spencer Street, London, with the entry only under Robert's name. There is no evidence that Haswell was the maker of the lathe, and it may have been put out for manufacture by one of the many small machine shops in the capital.