From 1909 until the Spanish Civil War, naval construction in Spain was monopolized by the Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval - (SECN) also Spanish Society for Naval Construction (SECN). In this time a mjority of its shares were owned by the United Kingdom firm (John Brown and Vickers-Armstrong), and therefore almost all ships built by the company were designed after Royal Navy vessels. Many British technical advisors continued to work in the Spanish shipbuilding yards, workshops, foundries and dry docks (on both sides) during the war.