In 1918, a patent was taken out by Dawson & Buckingham, describing an "auto-S.M.L.E." rifle. It was a short-magazine Lee-Enfield No.1 Mk.III rifle with a gas tube fitted on the left side of the barrel, however it is described as having the gas tube running underneath the barrel in a later patent. There is no surviving prototype model and little evidence to suggest that a prototype was ever made. Nevertheless, it was the first automatic Lee-Enfield design, followed shortly afterwards by the Howell.