Not As Rare As One Would Think
Thor, Simplex and a host of others made such washing machines for domestic and commercial laundry use. Indeed washers such as these are still sold in some form today for use in the United States.
Such washers are called just that, "washers", one had to do the extracting in an extractor, or as in the case above use a wringer.
Early H-Axis machines such as this were wood inside, then came models with metal inner tubs.
If you look at pictures posted by Sudsman and others of vinage hospital and other commercial laundries, you will see these machines. Most often they were driven by belts attached to a power system (usually steam), that ran much of everything else in the laundry.
Because these tumblers have their bearings on either side, they could be bulit into a wall with openings on each side. This was and still is common practice in hospital and or other commercial laundries that handle "infected" soiled linen. In this manner clean laundry from the machine is not removed nor comes into contact with the "dirty" side of the laundry.
L.
