Hobson made, it is believed, just two models of lathe: a 5.75-inch and the unusual - and now very rare - 3.5" x 18" geared-head H7. The machines were made by Victa Engineering, at their Tollgate and Cordwallis factories in Maidenhead, England. The Victa Company, although a very small-scale affair with few employees, appear to have been involved in numerous projects involving small machine tools: the well known and beautifully-made Centec milling machine dates back to the early 1940s when the model was introduced as a development of the V.E.C. or Victa horizontal miller, a machine sometimes badged as a "Warwick". During the 1940s and early 1950s Victa also manufactured lathes and, besides the range of rather advanced geared-head lathes sold under the Hobson label they used the "Warwick" name on a designed-for-model-engineering 3.5" x 18" gap bed, backgeared screwcutting belt-drive lathe. They also made (whether under licence or a sub-contractor is not known), the Eagle hand-operated surface Grinder marketed by Dronsfields Brothers, makers of the Marlow milling machines. The company are thought to have eventually moved to Pool in Dorset where the proprietor had a second home. 
With a 3.5-inch centre height and a capacity between centres of 18 inches the design of the H7 reflected strong elements of the Myford ML7 with the tailstock, bedways and compound slide rest looking to be styled along the same lines - and probably dimensionally identical as well. The bed featured 4.5-inch wide, ground-finished flat ways (using the same type of narrow-guide principle as the Myford) with the standard-fit gap able to accommodate a piece of material some 10.5 inches in diameter and 1.5 inches thick on the faceplate. However, the most unusual feature was the all-geared headstock, a fitting virtually unknown on any lathe of a comparable size. This turned the machine into a miniature of a larger one and, at a stroke, did away with the need for the moving of V-belts as well as eliminating the need for a countershaft or exposed backgears. The headstock spindle was bored to clear 0.75 inches, turned from a solid 2.25-inch diameter steel bar, ground finished and ran in taper-roller bearings. The 15/8i inch threaded nose accommodated a No. 3 Morse taper and was driven through its 12 speeds of 30 to 1500 r.p.m (6 geared and 6 more from the double-step drive pulley) by a 0.33 or .05 h.p. motor though a 1/2" V belt.
Screwcutting was by changewheels - there appears to have been no gearbox option, though as an example of how close the H7 was to the Series 7 Myford, at least one owner fitted the screwcutting gearbox from a Myford; a picture is at the bottom of this page. The tumble-reverse mechanism was crude, and required a bolt to be undone before rotation of the acme-form, 0.75-inch diameter leadscrew could be reversed. With the standard set of changewheels (it is though that 16 were included) inch pitches from 6 to 96 t.p.i. could be generated and, with metric-translation gears in place, from 0.25 to 4 mm.
Closely resembling that on an ML7, the tailstock featured a 2.5-inch, No. 2 Morse taper ram with a square-section thread that passed through the handwheel. Set-over of 0.5-inches was available for taper turning. Publicity literature issued for the lathe contained several differences and, whilst one set confirmed the roller-bearing headstock as standard and the provision of 12 speeds, in the Model Engineer magazine for October 1950 an advertisement claimed 9 or (optionally) 18 speeds were provided (the 18 presumably by a double-step pulley) and that the headstock bearings were 'heavy bronze tapered bearings' - not rollers. The photographs also differed from the examples shown on this page, with the headstock ball-ended speed-change levers pivoting from the top rather than the bottom of the casting - the change in lever pivot position possibly coming about when the gearing was altered to give 9 speeds. The changewheel cover was also shaped differently - and there was no sign of either a tumble-reverse lever, or a leadscrew handwheel. In the early 1950s the H7 was priced at £50, on 10-weeks' delivery, but with extra for a motor. As a comparison, the ML7 (on easy terms) came to £42 : 18s : 6d - again, without a motor. In mechanical terms the Victa was much more lathe for the money, but offered no greater a turning capacity - though the better speed range (and the ease of changing them) together with a larger hole through the spindle - must have been appealing. Understandably, in the straitened times of the second decade after WW2, these advantages may not have been temptation enough to part with an extra 16%.
If any reader has a Hobson lathe the writer would be interested to hear from them.
A larger 5.75" centre height Hobson was also made - details here.