Manufactured by either Winfield, the well-known maker of small lathes based in Long Eaton, Nottinghamshire, or a re-branded RandA, the 3" x 13" gap-bed, backgeared and screwcutting Kelson lathe was badge-engineered for the long-established Liverpool firm of Robert Kelly & Son. The likelihood is that the lathe was, indeed, a slightly modified RandA, a standard model from that company carrying the word Kelson cast into the bed.
Founded in 1875, the Robert Kelly & Son traded until 1976 and, having good relations with edge-tool makers in Sheffield, stocked many of their products, including engineering and woodworking tools, cutlery, gentleman's cut-throat razors and precision instrument and inspection tools for engineers. Later diversifications included gardening equipment and, after WW2, larger as well as a few smaller machine tools - the latter being such as the amateur's lathe shown here.
R. Kelly & Son were particularly successful with acquisitions of other firms in Liverpool, Manchester and London - in 1930, they took control of the established machine tool and engineering supplies firm of R. Melhuish of Fetter Lane and Holburn. Kelly, like many similar dealers, published rather fine, hard-back books showing their regular stock items. These publications were often printed in bulk with identical content but branded as unique to each trader.
The Kelson lathe, with its distortion-resistant cantilever-style bed cast as-one with the headstock, appears to have incorporated design clues from not only Winfield but also RandA, early and late versions of the Myford ML1 and ML2 - and perhaps a leavening of input from Grayson. Features included the use of tumble-reverse gearing to the leadscrew with a snail-cam lever to engage the clasp nuts; changewheels were of the Myford type being 20 D.P. with a 14.5-degree pressure angle, 3/8" thick (0.375") with a 5/8" bore (0.625") and pins to hold pairs of gears when set-up in a compound train; the No.1 Morse taper headstock spindle ran in simple, plain parallel headstock bearings with each adjusted by a slot closed down by a pinch bolt at the front; a T-slotted cross slide was provided, this being fitted with a simple flat plate to support the outer end of the feed screw end together with a plain-disc, acid-etched micrometer dial.
The usual rather perfunctory, single-sided apron for this class of lathe was used, the carriage hand-traverse handwheel being geared directly to the rack and making for a rather rapid travel for just a slight turn of the wheel.
The backgear for slow speeds and screwcutting were clustered just behind the front headstock bearings and the tailstock - so similar in design to many other contemporary small lathes - used a No.1 Morse taper spindle bored clear through and machined with a thread on its external surface. Unlike the original tailstock fitted to the Myford ML1 to ML4 lathes, with their inadequate side support, that on the Kelson was mounted on a much more robust base and, like those on the Myford, able to be set-over for the turning of slight tapers.
As the only known surviving Kelson - that might not be a RandA - is mounted on a cast-iron chip tray complete with a deep cut-out for a flat belt to rise from beneath, it must be assumed that one option was a treadle stand. However, Myford used a similar stand on their ML2 and ML4 lathes - but with a countershaft bolted to the underside of the tray and with the drive arranged to come from behind.
When the Kelson was marketed is uncertain, but the writer would suggest from the early 1930s onwards, the use of tumble reverse and a cover over the changewheels point to a time when these fittings were becoming far more common..