Thought to have been made circa 1890 to 1910 the Taylor 2.25" x 10" (57 mm x 250 mm) backgeared plain-turning lathe was manufactured by T. Taylor of Chester Street, Hulme, Manchester. Of straightforward design, and not unlike a small version of the far more common English Britannia and (more highly specified) Holmes models, the lathe exhibited considerable care in its construction with, amongst many other touches, a fine finish to turned and hand-made parts, a number of custom-made nuts and bolts and the smaller gear on the spindle constructed with an integral flange. The lathe would have been expensive to produce and, with its very limited capacity, at whom it was aimed is unclear. It was not in the same class as the (generally larger) German Lorch Schmidt and Boley lathes of the same era, nor would it have offered competition for the superb but very expensive American bench precision lathes as made by Stark and others - though these latter were, in any case, imported in only tiny numbers. The general appearance of Taylor headstock was of a contemporary large lathe in miniature - even to the parallel-bore "box" type headstock bronze bearings and with the solid spindle having its end thrust absorbed against a plate supported on a pair of bars bolted to the end face of the headstock. However, one other T.Taylor lathe is known and this used (amongst many other detail differences) tapered bronze headstock bearings - a more conventional approach at the time for a miniature precision machine. Although a 6 : 1 ratio backgear was fitted - not usually a requirement on so small a lathe - no screwcutting or power feed to the carriage was provided and nor does there appear to have been any provision to fit it. Drive was by a round leather "gut" rope to a 3-step pulley - the makers providing a simple, non-adjustable countershaft and an extra  pulley to match that on the headstock.
In order to give a reasonable travel to the top slide this was arranged, like those fitted to watch and clockmakers' lathes, to be of considerable length. Strangely, the cross slide had only a little over an inch of movement before the upper section ran off the lower casting and the gib strip (with only two adjustment screws set at the very ends of the slide) became unsupported. However, this serious shortcoming was compensated for to some extent by the ease with which the very long base of the compound could be slide forwards and backwards on its securing T bolt. Life for the operator was not easy for, typical of most other small lathes made at the time, the feed screws lacked micrometer dials and were fitted with simple crank handles - especially difficult things for the operator to control on fine work.
Supplied with the usual hand T-rest the makers confirmed their opinion of the lathe as belonging to the precision class by including (probably at extra cost) a split collet set together with a spindle nose compression holder.
If any reader has a machine tool by T. Taylor (the name was cast into the bed feet) the writer would be interested to hear from you.
Additional pictures of the T.Taylor lathe here and here..