EVANS LATHE. The best-known lathe maker contemporary with Holtzapffel was Evans. The shop made fewer lathes, but they were nevertheless fine specimens, with modifications not found on the Holtzapffel lathes. William Jones Evans was an engine, lathe, and tool maker in London. He established his firm in 1810 but finished his working life with Britannia Company of Colchester.

BIRCH LATHE. Only a few ornamental lathes were made by the George Birch & Company of Salford, Manchester, England. Most of these lathes were engineers' metalworking tools for precision work. They were given full ornamental turning capability with the addition of the necessary components but, unlike those of Holtzapffel and Evans, were never made originally as ornamental lathes. One Birch lathe was reportedly made in 1888 for a Reverend C. C. Ellison for a total cost of £860, the equivalent of about $3,000 today.

PLANT LATHE. The firm of George Plant made ornamental lathes, one of which was uncovered in an old shed by a member of the Society of Ornamental Turners and purchased. After it was cleaned up, the inscription "George Plant, maker, Kidsgrove, Staffs, 1954" was uncovered.

HULOT LATHE. A French toolmaker, Hulot, made a rose engine and medallion-copying lathe, probably in the middle part of the eighteenth century, which found its way to England. It seems that George III summoned Hulot to England in 1766 in connection with an engine-turning and medallion-copying lathe that the king had on order. James Watt went to Paris and saw such a lathe in the workshops of Hulot.

GOYEN LATHE. William Goyen made a small number of high-quality lathes for amateur use in Newton Abbot, England, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Little is known about Goyen, a South American railway engineer who retired and took to making lathes as a hobby. He is credited with making singlehandedly the finest ornamental lathes. They were probably made for friends; two of them were made for the Singer brothers of sewing machine fame for a reputed cost of £1,500 each. Only ten Goyen lathes are known to exist today.

MUNRO LATHE. James Munro was an engineer, machinist, and lathe and tool maker who worked in London. He was a maker of ornamental lathes, as is evident from this picture, a lathe dated 1868. An 1860 advertisement headed "James Munro ( From Messers, Holtzapffel & Co.)" would indicate that Munro had been an employee of Holtzapffel before setting up in his own business. The number of ornamental lathes that Munro made is not known. The quality of his lathes would seem to be equal that of known Holtzapffel lathes.

LUKIN LATHE. Catalog number six of the Britannia Company, Colchester, England, shows a picture of the Lukin ornamental-turning lathe. It is similar in construction to the other nineteenth-century lathes. Reverend James Lukin was an accomplished turner and engineer who wrote several books on turning.

FENN LATHE. Joseph Fenn was another Holtzapffel employee who left the firm to start his own toolmaking company. The Reverend G. A. Grace, a member of the Society of Ornamental Turners, reported, "I have a very nice Fenn lathe, the workmanship of which is in every way of the Holtzapffel standard."

Undoubtedly other ornamental lathes were made by other toolmakers, but the above are the better-known ones. No company ever matched the productivity of the Holtzapffel family in the field of ornamental lathes.

This article was copied from Ornamental Turnery by Frank M. Knox (see the Bibliography for more information). I modified it a bit to read a little better and hypertextize it.