Thankyou for the replies. 1217060 is indeed the correct one. “Lathe attachment device” is not a very illuminating title.
Would the Alan Binns noted as the inventor have any connection with Binns & Berry, the lathe makers?
The device works by having an inner dial and an outer dial. The inner dial is geared directly to the 4tpi leadscrew with a standard 16t gear (so it is a 4″ indicator in Cleeve’s terminology). The outer dial is geared to move at 1/63 of the outer dial (16:21 and 12:36) so it is a 15 3/4″ indicator in the same terminology. It so happens that 15 3/4″ is 0.002″ (0.05mm) longer than 400mm, which is an error of 1 part in 8000, and deemed acceptable.
The dial has a second mode of operation for ‘awkward’ metric threads (like 1.75mm), where it interacts with the inner dial. I have not yet thought that one through…