In the later part of the nineteenth, and early part of the twentieth century, the town of Waltham was a centre of American precision engineering - with Stark, Waltham Machine Works, Hopkins Watch Tool Company, B.C.Ames, W.H. Nichols, the Wade Tool Company and many other well-known* high-class firms all located within a few miles of each other. In this company of experts, two men stood out and whose names were to became synonymous with all that was best in watchmaker's lathes - Mr. Webster and Mr. Whitcomb. Webster had risen to be Superintendent (the Works Manager) of the 'American Watch Company' while Whitcomb was a principal in 'Ballou, Whitcombe & Co.', a precision machine and tool-making company.
For eighteen years - and assisted by other skilled designers and engineers - they developed a range of increasingly sophisticated and better-made miniature lathes culminating, in 1888/9, with the introduction of a design that was to set the world standard for watchmaker's lathes, the Webster-Whitcomb - or "WW" as it was to become better known. This lathe was a seminal development and - with the exception of the lighter "Geneva" type, as exemplified by the superb Bergeon - completely displaced all earlier kinds including the well-known "Swiss Universal" (or English mandrel as it is also known) and the Bottum.
Even though Clement were vigorous in their marketing of the ingenious swivel-head lathe, it appears that they still needed to offer a lathe of a more conventional type, a WW..