This design was prepared by Thornycroft, along with the Admirality "Clan", to combat reports of German destroyers with 5" guns. Although this design previously proposed six single 4" guns, the adoption of the Army's 4.7" gun as the 5" equivalent led to this being worked in.
This class had cleaner hull lines than their Admirality sisters, and were thus slightly faster. Because of this, two planned "Clan" class were re-ordered as extra "Shakespeares", but the end of the First World War saw this order cancelled. Whilst building, a 12pdr 3" AA gun replaced the two 2pdr AA guns, but this later changed. They were very commercially succesful, and 21 were sold to foreign navies.
Prior to the outbreak of WW2, Wallace was re-armed as a fast AA escort, and was similar to the "V & W" class converted as such, but her increased dimensions allowed a quad 2pdr pom-pom to be worked in aft.
Broke and Keppel were re-armed as short range escorts, with two guns, A and Y, removed, and a hedgehog and extra depth-charges added respectively. Light AA armament was also increased.