Although the background to the T.N.C. Company is not known (though they were known as a maker of engineering tools) the lathe was either imported from the United Kingdon or built under licence as a replica of the Super Adept.  It was sold in Australia before and after W.W.2 with machines were marketed through McPhersons, a major supplier to industry but who also catered to the "home workshop" customer. Their 1937 catalogue listed the No. 1 and No. 2 shapers and just the Super Adept lathe, priced with a simple slide tailstock barrel £2 : 5s : 0d or, with a screw-feed arrangement, £2 : 7s : 6d. Although a countershaft was not shown the foot-motor was, at £1 : 15s : 0d. The 1949 the catalogue did not list any Adept machines - though much other British equipment was included (Moore &Wright, Eclipse, etc) - but as this edition did not include any other products for amateurs (such as their own 3.5" bar-bed lathe) it may have been for industry only. By 1955 the Super Adept and both shapers were back, though the foot-motor had disappeared and just one 3-jaw chuck was shown. Whether Adepts were exported with T.N.C. badges, or manufactured in Australia, is not known - and if any reader has copies of T.N.C. advertising literature the writer would be pleased to hear from them.
Only the most minor differences between the Adept and T.N.C. can be found: a straight instead of waisted carriage-feed handle; a top slide whose base casting was modified at the rear with a curved slot - the purpose of which was to improve the ease of setting over. It is just possible that the lathe was an early product of Hercus, with the name acting as a suitable disguise. Certainly, as yet, no advertising literature has been discovered for the machine and it may well have been distributed around local tool dealers "by hand" - as a convenient way of starting off what was to become a very successful machine-tool manufacturing business.  Fred Portass also produced a modified Adept for the department store Gamages, this being identical to the ordinary version save for cosmetic changes to the bed casting.