To my eyes, the 7-shaped seatpost, relatively slack angles and top-tube shifter combined with the celluloid-covered handlebars all say British pre-war club/performance bike - either before Continental frame angles and fashions came in, or built to accomodate more traditional/conservative riders. It looks to me like an early "lightweight revolution" influenced production bike built to accomodate a gearhub, a couple of notches above the basic "sports model" but not as nice as a full-blown custom machine.
Be interesting to know what size tires those are - I suspect they're closer to 26 x 1 1/4 than anything else.
I await the response of our Anglophiles and our cousins across the pond on this one. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - I frequently am!
Russ Fitzgerald
Greenwood, SC
http://internaldetours.blogspot.com