During 1902 and 1903 the Admiralty progressively reorganized its forces in home waters. A heterogeneous collection of scattered, inefficient and partially manned vessels that rarely went to sea together was transformed slowly into a permanent and cohesive fighting force. Unlike Fisher's fleet redistribution of 1904, these earlier measures have attracted little attention. Yet, as this article will argue, in creating first the Home Squadron and then the Home Fleet and constituting these new commands as permanent fully manned sea-going units, these reforms laid the necessary foundation for Fisher's later work. They are thus significant both in their own right and as the forerunners of later reforms.