Easily mistaken at a quick glance for a Round-bed Drummond, this unusual and rare machine may well be of UK origin. Not many lathes use aluminium and bronze for their major components - the little ManSon,  CAV,  Taiag/Peatol, Baye,  Machinex and Unknown Lathe No 59  are examples - but this machine has both headstock and tailstock cast in the former and the lower section of the carriage and the tailstock base in the letter.
Backgeared and screwcutting, the drive is by V-belt - suggesting a construction of post 1932 - probably the 1940s or even early 1950s. However, as a production job, some aspects of the lathe do not ring true: the compound slide assembly is rather "precision-bench-lathe-like", there appears to be a line of brazing beneath the underside of the carriage at the rear and it may be that the headstock and tailstock have been adapted from something else. In other words, this might be a lathe that was expertly assembled at home or, more likely, in that traditional way, on "nights" in an engineering plant…..