She was built under the 1910-11 shipbuilding programme by John Brown & Company of Clydebank, Glasgow. She (and her sisters Hornet and Hydra) differed from the standard Admiralty I-class destroyer in only having two shafts instead of three. They had two Brown-Curtis type turbines, and twin boilers. Capable of 28 knots, she carried two 4-inch guns, other smaller guns and two 21-inch torpedo tubes and had a complement of 72 men. She was launched on 28 July 1911.