Produced in Australia during the 1950s the Advance lathe was manufactured by Bert Kirby in Mount Alexander Road, Mooney Ponds,  Melbourne. After the owner's retirement in the early 1960s the rights were bought by Alfred Stewart Pty Ltd. who traded, until about 1975, from 391 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne. Despite the simple arrangements that such a transfer would seem to imply some lathes are marked "Alfred Stewart Pty. Ltd. Melbourne, Aust. Sole Agents for Advance Machine Tools Pty. Ltd." while others carry the legend: "Alfred Stewart Manufacturing Engineers Pty. Ltd Kilsyth Victoria".  After Alfred Stewart Industries, production was continued by J. & G. Wylie Industries at Moorabbin (Melbourne) from around 1980 as the Advance lathe Mk. 2.
Although intended for amateur use, the Advance was well constructed with no evidence of penny-pinching in its construction and with some parts, like the full-circle, beautifully-finished handwheels, being of exceptional quality for its class. Like the contemporary Perfecto, the Advance was loosely based on the design of the pre-WW2 English Myford ML1 to ML4 where the aim was to provide a small, inexpensive lathe that could be adapted to a variety of tasks. The bed, of the cantilever box-form type, was internally ribbed, flat-topped and with 60-degree V-edges. The centre height was 3.5 inches, the capacity in the gap 8.75 inches with the distance between centres varying between 12 and 21 inches. Backgear was fitted as standard - arranged exactly like the Myford by being clustered in pairs just inboard of the front spindle bearing with the rear pair mounted on an eccentric shaft. A useful T-slotted cross-slide was supplied as part of the ordinary specification. Lathes from the initial batch were rather crude: they had a full nut on the apron (requiring much twiddling of the leadscrew handwheel to move the carriage) and a dog clutch on the leadscrew to allow the screwcutting or carriage sliding feed to be disengaged. There were no micrometer dials on the feed screws and a very light, upright No. 1 Morse taper tailstock with a limited reach over the cross slide.  Later models were much improved and demonstrated close attention to detail, with obvious attempts to overcome the more glaring deficiencies of the original Myford: the base of the headstock was formed into a substantial bracket that allowed it to be bolted down with four studs; the apron was a heavy casting that carried proper leadscrew clasp nuts and a hand-traverse working through reduction gearing for a slower and steadier feed. Both top and cross slides were cast with integral feed-screw support brackets that gave extra travel by allowing the slides to pass well forward over their ways. When eventually fitted, the micrometer dial were rather superior - with clear engraving of the divisions, the ability to be zeroed and a narrow band of knurling around the periphery. The tailstock - though it had a rather thin sole plate - was of decent weight and fitted with a simple but effective (and non-distorting side) clamp at the rear. However, the clamp that locked the barrel was of a type that should only have been found on the cheapest kind of wood lathe - a directing-acting screw.
Headstock bearings were of the very ordinary split, plain bronze type, closed down by a pinch bolt, with that at the front being 1.25-inches in diameter and 1.75-inches long. The 17/32" bore spindle was ground finished, had its 1" x 10 t.p.i. nose thread ground in and carried a No. 2 Morse taper.  Tumble reverse to the leadscrew drive must have been offered as an option, it being seen on some lathes, but not on others. Drive systems too would have been listed separately, with various kinds of countershaft drive arrangement encountered and fitted in both guarded and unguarded form. However, one fitting encountered stands out, a neatly built-on unit with a left/right threaded bar to lever the countershaft away from the headstock and tighten the final-drive belt (unfortunately the tensioning/slackening device appears not to have been  fitted with a quick-action toggle-action lever, as used for example on the Myford ML10, but had instead to be laboriously turned by hand).
A later model Advance, the Mk. 2 from around 1980, incorporated several improvements including a roller-bearing headstock; a No. 2 Morse taper tailstock with a 1-inch diameter barrel with a cam-locking lever arrangement and with the casting cantilevered forwards to improve the reach across the cross-slide. While the plain-bearing versions of the lathe had the headstock and bed cast as separate units the roller-bearings models had a more rigid assembly with the bed and head cast as one (just like the early Myford ML1 and ML2).
Details of when changes were incorporated into the lathe, and in what order, are uncertain but, if you have an Advance, or any advertising or technical literature concerning them, the writer would be delighted to hear from you.