It looks like a large faceplate lathe. The faceplate has all manners of hole patterns for bolting portions of a circle like parts to it. Such parts might be used as bolt on counterweights for large engines, steam engine flywheels and the like. Each different size of part would have it's own hole pattern for bolts and depending on the size of the flywheel it was meant for, it would have to be bolted to the exact same diameter as the flywheel for machining.

As both feed axis are hand powered, no fancy turning would have been possible, unlike most engine lathes today that have powered/geared feeds that can accurately turn threads and such.

This type of lathe would not be used today as CNC mills could handle such work with ease. In mass production, CNC lathe/mill combos can turn a flywheel with counterweights in one piece without breaking a sweat, similar to how they do engine crank shafts.

I'm going to guess that the hole patterns in the face plate is what gives the lathe it's name.