Both served in home defence, but the 5th King's landed in Normandy on D Day as part of a specialist beach group 1939.

[4] The Rev John Howson was appointed Honorary Chaplain in 1865,[7] but later transferred to the 80th (Liverpool Press Guard) Lancashire RVC.

Sub-District No 13 (County of Lancashire) was formed in Northern District with headquarters at Liverpool and the following units assigned:[6][8] The 1st Lancashire RVC became a volunteer battalion of The King's (Liverpool Regiment) under the Childers Reforms on 1 July 1881 with 10 companies, and was redesignated as the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the regiment on 1 March 1888.

[4][6][8] While the sub-districts were referred to as 'brigades', they were purely administrative organisations and the volunteers were excluded from the 'mobilisation' part of the Cardwell system.

The Stanhope Memorandum of December 1888 proposed a more comprehensive Mobilisation Scheme for volunteer units, which would assemble in their own brigades at key points in case of war.

It was headquartered at 65 St Anne Street in Liverpool, which served as the drill hall for the eight-company battalion.

[16][17][18][19][20] At the outbreak of World War I the West Lancashire Division had just begun its annual training and when mobilisation was ordered on 4 August 1914 the units were sent back to their drill halls.

[17][18][19][21] The TF was intended to be a home defence force for service during wartime and members could not be compelled to serve outside the country.

On 15 August, the War Office issued instructions to separate those men who had signed up for Home Service only, and form these into reserve units.

However, the division was progressively broken up to reinforce the British Expeditionary Force fighting on the Western Front.

[18][21][17] The 1/5th King's was one of the units that left, landing at Le Havre on 22 February 1915 and joining 6th Brigade in 2nd Division.

It remained with this formation until the end of the war, taking part in the following engagements:[17][18][19][23][29] The battalion was at Ath in Belgium when the Armistice with Germany came into force on 11 November.

In November it was sent to Blackpool, and in February 1915 it went to Canterbury where the 1st and 2nd Line Liverpool Brigades had been temporarily combined under a single commander.

The men of 5th King's joined with those from the 6th (Rifle) Bn to form 43rd Provisional Battalion at Sheringham in Norfolk.

Part of the role of the former provisional units was physical conditioning to render men fit for drafting overseas, and 25th Kings landed at Calais as a 'Garrison Guard' battalion on 7 May 1918.

In France it was attached to 59th (2nd North Midland) Division at Estrée-Cauchy, and on 16 June it joined 176th (2/1st Staffordshire) Brigade in that formation.

By mid-July the 'Garrison Guard' title had been dropped and it became a fighting battalion, serving with 176th Bde at the Battle of Albert (21–23 August) and the final advance in Artois and Flanders.

[43][44] After the successful completion of the assault landing phase of Overlord, 5th King's continued to serve with 21st Army Group on line of communication duties for the remainder of the campaign in North West Europe.

After the division was reduced to lower establishment, the battalion left on 17 September 1942[42] to join 206th Independent Infantry Bde.