The second example of this backgeared and screwcutting lathe to be found - the first being in rather less good condition. With an odd mixture of design points, the lathe has a simple, three-bar bed; a smaller diameter rear pair (with the dog-clutch equipped leadscrew set between them) used to support the leadscrew and rear of the carriage while, at the front, a much larger diameter bar passed through a huge bronze bush that formed an "apron" for the carriage. While bar-bed lathes are relatively common, those that used three bars to support the tailstock and carriage are far fewer, with only two known to the writer - the French Siame and the Swedish Almkvist.
Apart from the cast-iron cross slide on one machine - which might be a cut-down part from a Boxford - the major parts of both examples appears to have been constructed from blocks of steel milled to the required profiles. Even the tailstock might have been so created - quite a job without access to specially-made profile milling cutters.
Hinting the lathe might have been built in the late 1940s, or 1950s, are two factors: firstly, at the time, small lathes were in very short supply (with almost anything, no matter how worn and battered, in great demand) and secondly, the use of a simple but very effective Norman Patent quick-set toolpost - as used on the Drummond and Myford-Drummond M-Type lathes.
Unfortunately, on the first example of the lathe shown below, the rear-mounted backgear shaft is missing - though as this was carried by a pair of brackets bolted to the rear face of the headstock, should not be too difficult to reinstate.
Could this unknown lathe have been a "short-run" special by an established company (it certainly looks to have been well-made) or one of those "night-shift" jobs that were once so popular?