This very-unusual - and so-far unique - Drummond was found in Australia, home to another rare but slightly larger model from the same maker.
With such identifiable design, features and detailing this machine could not be other than a Drummond (although it cannot be ruled out as a copy), and one must surmise that it was taken to Australia by Arthur Drummond, one of the founding brothers, on his visit during there the early years of the 20th century. The lathe appears to be a combination of the specification found on the pre and post-1912 versions, with the bed, headstock and tailstock of the former combined with the front leadscrew and dog-clutch arrangement of the latter. However, three significant differences stand out: the double bolt arrangement at the front of the headstock; a foot at the tailstock end of the bed and the "inverted" form of the cross-slide ways - though the latter arrangement was also employed on the Drummond 5-inch model, but with longitudinal rather than transverse T-slots. Whilst the post 1912 models had a useful automatic disengage fitted to the carriage drive, this model has just a hand-operated lever on the dog clutch. Other more subtle differences also occur, some detailed with the illustrations below.
Of course, one cannot ever be absolutely sure that this lathe is a Drummond, but the fact that no other example appears to have survived points to it being a one-off by the factory. Should a rival company had tooled up to produce what was, for the time, a relatively complex small lathe, they surely have made sufficient numbers for more than one to survive the last one-hundred years. If you have an identical lathe, the writer would be delighted to be proved wrong - and very interested to hear from you.