Advertised during the early 1920s (and possibly before WW1 as well), the Carson "Universal Tool & Cutter Grinder" was typical of its type and era being able to handle work involving cutters up to 8 inches in diameter and 15 inches long - and so covering the sizes used on even larger milling and planing machines. Accessories supplied with the machine included a universal (swivelling) workhead with a hollow spindle, tailstock support, an internal grinding spindle, a swivelling and tilting machine vice, steadies, a substitute live spindle with a mounted 3-jaw chuck, tooth rest with arms, a dead centre with pulley and driving dog, four bushes to accept Brown & Sharpe taper-shank cutters, a turned sleeve to mount face cutters, drive dogs, a universal carrier, four grinding wheels, wheels guards and the "C" spanners necessary to adjust the spindle bearings. Although it could, with some difficulty, have been driven from overhead line shafting, the specialised nature of the machine meant that the maker included the special countershafts required for both work and wheel heads.
Brochures for the Carson show that the distributor - and most likely importer - was Charles Churchill & Co. Ltd., a very large machine-tool dealer, agent, distributor and manufacturers of machine tools. As the UK sales literature fails to mention the usual "Made in Britain" description, it is likely that tit would have been of American origin, as was the rather fine precision bench lathe that also used the Carson name, a machine that looked remarkably like the contemporary Cataract.