The first six destroyers and the later A-class label

The Daring, Havoc and Ferret classes comprised six ships from Thornycroft, Yarrow, and Laird, Son and Company, the forerunner of Cammell Laird. Admiral Jackie Fisher, then Third Sea Lord, supported them after torpedo boats had demonstrated their effectiveness in the Chilean Civil War and prompted the fitting of 3-inch guns to battleships and cruisers. A larger torpedo boat carrying guns could attack enemy torpedo boats before launching its own torpedoes, threatening the Jeune École expectation that torpedo craft could stop a battle fleet. Contemporary discussion compared the role to West Highland terriers chasing rodents or corgis working cattle. The ships displaced roughly 270 tons and used triple-expansion engines, two shafts and water-tube boilers. Their calm-water speeds were around 26-27 knots, and they had turtleback forecastles. Armament included a 12-pounder and three to five six-pounders, with the original three torpedo tubes generally reduced to two. Their service from 1895 to 1912 spanned about seventeen years of rapid technical change, during which destroyers grew to several times their size. Withdrawal by the end of 1912 is the reason for treating these six separately from the administrative A-class grouping introduced in 1913.