Hercus was a family-owned southern Australian machine-tool maker with works in Anderson Street, Southwark. Besides drills, hacksaws, tool & cutter and semi-universal grinding machines - and at least two models of horizontal miller (with vertical attachment) - they manufactured, from the late 1920s onwards, a range of lathes aimed at the amateur, semi-professional market and education markets. Whilst their initial effort was a simple bar-bed lathe (followed, in the late 1930s by a clone of the English Portass) their best known and most successful lathe was a copy of the American 9-inch South Bend "Workshop" lathe first built in 1939. The lathe was gradually improved and modified with production lasting until 2001 when the final model, the 260 Series with a 10" swing and able to pass 26 mm (1") through the spindle bore, came off the production line. The later models, although somewhat disguised with "angular" styling, still retained  tailstocks and top slides with a charmingly original South Bend appearance. However, one significant difference, incorporated from the 1960s onwards, was to the screwcutting arrangements - changes that necessitated the use of new threading charts. Another alteration, to improve the machine's appeal to training and educational buyers, was to enclose the neatly built-on 16-speed countershaft unit, and the changewheels, to modern health-and-nanny standards.
It is interesting to note that the firm's founder, Mr. F.W. Hercus, wrote to the British press in 1954 (but without revealing who he was) and outlined Customs' requirements for immigrants who took their own model-engineering machine tools with them to Australia. He also pointed out that, whilst it took sixteen weeks' work in England to buy a Model C South Bend, in Australia an "equally good" copy  could be bought with just ten weeks' wages. Fred Hercus was actively involved in model engineering and a member of the South Australian Society Of Model and Experimental Engineers. He lived in the Adelaide foothills (his private 5" track is still visible from the New Norton Summit Road) and in the early years of the 21st century one of his 5" gauge locomotives (made by him personally) was still running regularly on Society open days. He also constructed, for his own use, a one-off horizontal milling machine (that used components from his lathe in the spindle-drive arrangements) and a much more robust horizontal/vertical machine that found widespread use in Government departments, schools and training organisations..
Although most Hercus models followed the traditional 3-model South Bend line-up a Model A (with power cross feed and screwcutting gearbox), Model B (with changewheels and power cross feed) and Model C with changewheels and hand cross feed, a Model D was also produced. According to a long-serving ex-employee this was constructed at the behest of the Australian educational establishment the Model D had twin leadscrews and a  power-feed apron with a positive instead of cone clutch - the arrangement causing several difficult-to-solve problems.
During the 1960s Hercus supplied South Bend in the USA with a large batch of Model A lathes. These were fitted with camlock spindles and painted cream - and so are easily recognised should you come across one..