With the rise of Nazi Germany during the 1930s, the government of the United Kingdom came under political pressure to modernise and re-equip the Armed Forces.
In a statement to the House of Commons on 21 July 1936, he said that the companies would be formed on a county or city basis, each being linked to their local Territorial battalion.
[2] In answer to a question in the House of Commons on 26 September, Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Secretary of State for War, said that he had "in contemplation a change in the present method of manning vulnerable points".
[3] On 3 October, Sir Victor Warrender, the Financial Secretary to the War Office, announced that recruitment to the companies was "not open at present".
[4] In November 1939, the National Defence Companies were formed into battalions attached to regular army regiments;[5] renamed "Home Service Battalions", they would guard vulnerable points and Prisoner of War camps in the United Kingdom throughout the rest of the war.