Although, so far as is known, the plain-turning precision 2.5" x 20" Cowell lathe was never offered as a finished machine it was, for a short time during 1953, available from E.W.Cowell of 7A Sydney Road, Watford in Hertfordshire, as a collection of casting with the larger or more awkward machining operations already completed. Cowell were well known for their range of built-it-yourself workshop equipment and offered, during the 1950s and 1960s, such items as power hacksaws, drilling machines, hand-operated shapers, compound milling tables and machine vices.
Of distinctive appearance, the Cowell appears to have been very well engineered with a bed formed in the traditional precision lathe manner with a semi-circular section and a flat top. However, the edges were vertical, rather than bevelled, and the tailstock located between the ways with the compound aligned by bearing against the front vertical way. Heavily built, the headstock had large-diameter plain bearings while the tailstock featured a Cowell's rack-drive ram, this assembly also being offered an accessory (with a 4-spoke capstan) for a range of small English lathes.
With suitably large micrometer dials, the compound slide rest carried what looked to have been a copy of the Drummond M-Type top slide with the front half thinned down to mount a Norman Patent quick-set toolholder.
According to the Company's (very limited) advertising sheets, a screwcutting version of the lathe was planned, though whether it was ever offered is unknown.
If any reader has a Cowell lathe of this type the writer would be very interested to hear about it.