The National Reserve was created in 1910 as a means of retaining the option to call on the services of ex-military personnel to augment the regular and auxiliary military forces of the United Kingdom in the event of a major war.

The older reservists, considered unfit for more active duties, played a leading role in the creation of the Volunteer Training Corps, a civilian auxiliary recruited from those ineligible for military service, largely on account of age.

It insisted that a buttonhole badge was enough to comply with the Hague Convention on recognition of combatants, and only reluctantly permitted officers to wear the uniforms of their former corps on ceremonial occasions.

[7] The initial regulations stated that reservists' specific duties would be decided after consultation with local constabularies, and the intent was that they would clear livestock from likely invasion areas and guard vulnerable points in the national infrastructure.

[3] Revised regulations issued in November 1911 re-affirmed the National Reserve as primarily a register of trained men with no further military obligation, but also stated that they might be utilised "either for active duties with the home defence forces or for other services".

Class II reservists who did not wish to transfer out of the National Reserve but who nevertheless offered their services were uniformed, armed and attached to Territorial Force units to guard vulnerable points.

[14] With such a high workload, the question of how the older, Class III reservists could be employed was generally given a low priority by both the government and the County Territorial Associations whose task it was to process them.

The Buckinghamshire association led the way in anticipating what the government had anyway indicated would be a likely role, and started forming what would in October officially become Protection Companies to guard vulnerable locations.

Many senior reservists played leading roles in the development of the Volunteer Training Corps (VTC), raised from and by civilians ineligible for service in the military, largely on account of age.

Those Class III reservists who had not been assigned any duties found they were readily accepted into the VTC, where they lent the enthusiastic but unofficial organisation an element of martial respectability.

[15] As increasing numbers of National Reservists answered the call to service, they were put to work, freeing up the Territorial Force in the guarding of vulnerable points.

The next month, over 2,000 reservists were guarding strategic sites around London, another 600 had joined home defence forces at the Tyneside shipyards and munitions works, and Buckinghamshire provided a company of three officers and 117 other ranks for railway protection.

[16] Railway Protection Companies received the lowest priority in equipment, and in November the War Office could only state an aspiration that even half of the reservists so employed might be issued with weapons.

[17] In 1915, those Class II reservists under the age of 44 who could march ten miles with rifle and 150 rounds of ammunition were invited to volunteer for garrison duties overseas.

The Military Service Acts which introduced conscription two months earlier meant that those reservists who proved reluctant to transfer into the new corps could be compelled to do so.