When, in September 1934, Cecil Moore founded the Myford Engineering Company and rented a spare room in a 5-storey lace mill in Beeston, Nottinghamshire (the address in the early sales sheets was given as Neville Works) few could have foreseen the day when, ten years later, he was to occupy all but a fraction of the same building and to continue trading, as the same company, until August 2011. The foundation of this success - and the rise of Myford to pre-eminence amongst the then many competing makers of small lathes - was a range of just four machines: the very similar ML1, ML2, ML3 and ML4.

Neat, compact and of appealing appearance all were designed and priced to appeal to the amateur market. However, despite their success, not even the most enthusiastic of owners could boast of them as state-of-the-art products and, by the close of the decade, the new-for-1937 American Atlas 6-inch (with its all-V-belt drive countershaft, roller-bearing headstock, fully-guarded changewheels and a host of user-friendly details) was setting the benchmark for hobby-lathe design. In response, and designed during the closing years of WW2, Myford launched what was to become the most popular and sought after small lathe in the UK, the ML7.