Previously unrecorded until 2018, what might be an R.W.Roberts watchmaker's lathe is marked, on its box, as being made in Newcastle on Tyne, in England. Of the round-bed Geneva pattern, the lathe was, most unusually, sold in a fitted box complete with a second lathe, mounted in front of it - a German-made Lorch of the traditional type (some items in the box also bear the inscription L.S. & Co. (Lorch Schmidt). However, the "R.W.Roberts" - possibly by R.W.Roberts himself - is entirely different and unique in its design and execution. Fitted with a bronze headstock casting that appears to have been carried on a swivelling base, the Roberts' lathe had a tailstock with an enormously long spindle - leading one to speculate this this might have been some sort of special-purpose machine and not intended for general-purpose use. Whatever the truth of the matter, its origins will, almost certainly, remain a mystery..
Watch and other precision lathes with bronze headstocks and other major components include a long series of English Mandrel and Swiss Universal types from numerous makers during the 1800s, the more recent Bolein, CLH and, possibly, the American Stehman, Jenks & Stehman.
If you similar lathe, the writer would be interested to know.