The "Verschoyle Patent Mandrel", like many other modest lathes aimed at the amateur market and intended to become 'all things to all men', was available with a wide range of accessories to permit sawing, hand turning of wood and soft metals, spinning, drilling and eccentric turning. It was designed (by William Denham Verschoyle, 1868-1944) to be fastened to the edge of any convenient bench or work top - but if a self-contained unit was required amongst the list of extras was a twelve shillings and sixpence (12/6) length of wood with two star-shaped feet which enabled the whole machine to be kept together, mounted on a baseboard, ready for use.

No motor was provided; instead a drum, with a gear formed on its inner surface was turned by a handwheel. The drum gear engaged with another cut on the end of the headstock spindle - and so provided a geared-up drive in the manner once very common on bench-mounted hand-powered grinding wheels and on early watchmaker's lathes of the 'English Mandrel' type, from which its name probably originated. In order to provide some momentum a 5-inch diameter faceplate was permanently attached to the spindle - this faceplate (in the best tradition of early metal-turning lathes) was provided with slots, screws and jaws to convert it into a 4-jaw independent chuck.
The Verschoyle was not the only hand-turned lathe on the pre-second World War market, the Damaco 5 was also available; unfortunately, pictures of it seem to be very rare. In 1947 the Rollo Elf was also made available with a self-contained, hand-turned drive unit; details of the ordinary Elf can be found here.
The centre of the spindle was threaded to enable various kinds of centre to be screwed in; even the backplate offered for mounting a 3-jaw chuck was located in this way - and for the very light-duty work the lathe was capable of this simple arrangement was probably quite satisfactory.
The standard, 20-inch long bed sat 3" below the centre of the headstock spindle and was slotted on its underside to provide a location for a key carried by the tailstock base.
With no slide rest, or tool clamp, metal turning on the Verschoyle was limited to what could be accomplished by hand. Sets of suitable metal-turning hand tools (gravers) were offered, together with a short, narrow, hardened Tee rest to fit in the standard tool holder.
Quite how difficult it must have been to use the Verschoyle - especially to the extent illustrated in the wonderful instruction book - can only be open to conjecture; with the left hand whirling away at the handwheel, the right was in sole charge of everything else …...

Verschoyle mounted as a self-contained unit on the optional bench feet with a length of wood 24" long, 23/4 " wide and 17/8" deep providing the beam strength. The feet were necessary to provide clearance for the handwheel to rotate.

Headstock unit with mounting brackets and 4-jaw-cum-faceplate.
Very similar units were once employed as the basis of bench-mounted hand-powered grinding wheels.

End bracket to support the bed - additional units could be used at intervals  to stiffen very long beds.