Almost entirely divorced from the development of industrial-sized machine tools the evolution of small, high-precision watchmaking lathes took some interesting turns - including the dead-end "Swiss Universal" and "English Mandrel" (an interchangeable term) a design introduced during the early 1800s. Shown below is a typical example (now considered a highly collectable object d'art), in early and later version as made by G.Ve Vauscher Jeanneret Fleurier. A machine usually found with its headstock and bed cut from one piece of a bronze alloy - and of rather short and slender proportions - the spindle was supported in a single bearing at the front and against a hardened centre at the rear. Such a simple but effective arrangement reflected contemporary small-lathe practice for much of the 1800s as typified by, for example, some versions of the Pfeil. To make the machine as compact as possible, and free it from the complications of a separate and complex rope-driven countershaft, the lathe was equipped with an integral drive system - probably the world's first - where the spindle was powered by a hand-operated crank that turned a pair of step-up spiral gears. However, in every case the drive gear was bolted on and could be removed if required - provision for an alternative belt system often being included (or able to be subsequently added by owners). However, some examples of a rather more complex design, with part-bronze-part-steel construction, have been also been found with a neat, hand-powered round-rope drive that was turned through 90-degrees to wrap around a pulley on the spindle centre line - the pulley then acting as a catchplate to turn the spindle through a drive dog. Yet others versions, with the rim of the faceplate turned to accept a rope drive, also exist - though this would required the use of a separate countershaft and its associated complications of drive and mounting. Another of the lathe's significant features was the inclusion of a decent compound slide rest that allowed the operator precise control of the cutting tool. In many cases these lathes carried three slides (as did some later American Derbyshire lathes) with an adjustable tool carrier mounted on top of the top-slide proper. As was universal at the time, a hand T-rest was also provided, mounted on its own separate and adjustable bed rest.
Of a type sometimes referred to as a "mandrel" the "faceplate" was of a type that remains in production to this day for use on watch and clockmakers' lathes. Three radial slots each carried a split clamp with a fine-pitch screw for precise adjustment, whilst the centre had what was to become known as a "pump centre" where a work-piece, with a true hole through it, could be exactly centred by using the pointed end of a spring-loaded rod.
Although on its introduction the Swiss Universal had been an entirely novel concept  and, for its intended purpose, a very useful machine, some serious drawbacks were its relatively slow speed (a considerable handicap when working on small diameters), the inability to hold small workpieces on their outside diameter and a lack of rigidity in the bed. In all these respects it was eventually to be rendered obsolete by a number of significant and closely overlapping developments instigated by a close-knit group of Americans. Starting in 1857 or 1858 the first improvement came with the invention by Charles S. Moseley of a small hollow-headstock spindle bar-bed lathe that accepted "split chucks" (or "collets" as they are now known) - a machine that was the immediate forerunner of today's "Geneva" lathes. In 1862 came the introduction of high-speed headstocks with hardened spindles and bearings, a feature first incorporated in the larger "bench precision" lathe by John Stark of that year, a model that made miniature precision work of all kinds so much easier. In the early 1870s Ballou, Whitcomb & Co. introduced the next significant advance, an improved version of a lathe built originally by A. Webster of the American Watch Company and then independently manufactured by two former employees  Kidder and Adams. By 1879 Weber and Whitcomb had combined to form the American Watch Tool Company and by 1888-9 were ready to market the final and definitive form of heavy-duty watchmakers' lathe - the 50 mm centre height Webster-Whitcomb, or "WW" as it was to become better known. With a spindle and bearings constructed from the very finest grades of hardened, ground and honed steel (and able to run reliable at high speeds for years on end), draw-tube closed collets and a rigid, absolutely accurate bevelled-edge bed that ensured precise alignment of headstock, slide rest and tailstock - this seminal lathe finally answered all the needs of any craftsman engaged in watch and instrument manufacture or repair.
If you have a Swiss mandrel lathe of this type the writer would be interested to hear from you.

*American "Precision Bench Lathes" were also to be eventually made by, amongst others: B.C. Ames, Wade, Pratt & Whitney, Rivett, Cataract, Hardinge, Elgin, Hjorth, Potter, Remington and Sloan & Chace, Derbyshire, Waltham Machine Works, Bottum, Levin, Engineering Appliances, Pearce, Sawyer Watch Tool Co., UND, Fenn-Sadler. and the "Cosa Corporation of New York".