She was built by John Brown & Company, Clydebank to an Admiralty design, under the 1910–11 programme. She (and her sisters Hind and Hornet) 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 , she carried two guns, other smaller guns and two torpedo tubes and had a complement of 72 men. She was launched on 19 February 1912.