two of the gunboats were laid down at the w.h. potter & sons shipyard in liverpool on 1 december 1897, while the other two were begun the next day by london & glasgow in govan. the liverpool ships were launched as hms "bramble" (26 november 1898) and hms "britomart" (29 march 1899), while their counterparts in glasgow were named hms "dwarf" (15 november 1898) and hms "thistle" (22 june 1899). these names had all been borne by distinguished precursors among the small warships of the royal navy. logs of all four vessels can be found online at http://www.naval-history.net/.