Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907

The Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 (7 Edw. 7, c.9) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the auxiliary forces of the British Army by transferring existing Volunteer and Yeomanry units into a new Territorial Force (TF); and disbanding the Militia to form a new Special Reserve of the Regular Army. This reorganisation formed a major part of the Haldane Reforms, named after the creator of the Act, Richard Haldane.

The lessons learned during the South African War of 1899-1902 had reinforced the idea that the regular Army was not capable of fighting a prolonged full-scale war without significant assistance; almost all regular units in the United Kingdom had been deployed overseas within four months of the outbreak of hostilities, and the entire pool of reserve manpower had been exhausted in under a year. There had been no thought before the war to using auxiliary forces overseas; in the event, volunteers had been used on an ad-hoc basis, and a new auxiliary arm (the Imperial Yeomanry) was formed to provide specialist troops, but it was clear that a more effective system was required in future. A number of attempts at reform under the Conservative government of 1901-1905 had failed to make any lasting changes to the system, and left the auxiliary forces disorganised and demoralised.

With the Liberal victory in December 1905, Haldane was appointed as Secretary of State for War, and immediately set about reforming the Army to best prepare it for an intervention in a European war. He decided on a regular Expeditionary Force and an auxiliary "Territorial Force", which would be liable for home defence, with an expanded reserve for the Regular Army. After some examination of the best way to implement this, Haldane put forward a draft bill in the winter of 1906, and ensured it would be in the government's legislative program for the coming year. In order to ensure it would pass without difficulty, he consulted privately with senior Army officers and the King, as well as the leader of the Opposition, to gain their support for the principles of the legislation. It was put before the Commons on 4 March, then debated in late March and throughout April, where it received prolific but disorganised opposition, mainly from partisans of the existing system. A small group opposed the bill on the grounds that the proposed force would be ineffective against Continental armies, whilst the Labour Party members generally opposed any increase in military strength. It had its third reading in June, passing with a comfortable majority, and received the Royal Assent in August; the Act became effective immediately, though the bulk of its reforms were scheduled to begin on 1 April 1908.

The Act was divided into three main sections; the first created "County Associations", which would be the local bodies which would administer and support the Territorial units - they would, however, have no military control over them when called out for service. The second section reformed the existing Volunteers and Yeomanry into the newly-created Territorial Force, whilst the third dissolved the Militia and in its place created the Special Reserve, to be composed of men who had not previously served in the regular Army.