The small dimensions and shallow draught of the Bramble class were designed to facilitate navigation on the complex coastlines and great rivers of Africa, South Asia and the Far East.

For Thistle, considered one of the better-performing ships of the class, this would only provide two and a half days' movement at her sustained cruising speed of 11.5 knots, and full-speed runs used nearly twice the quantity of coal over any given length of time.

Each ship's triple-expansion steam engine was capable of 13.5 knots, only slightly slower than contemporary battleships and cruisers, and their hulls were built of steel, exploiting metallurgical advances of the 1880s, rather than using older wrought iron or composite construction techniques.

In layout, the gunboats were also modern, resembling a miniature version of contemporary protected cruisers, with a straight stem, high forecastle, taller charthouse, and a long low deckhouse extending aft to an even lower quarterdeck.

This was a distinct contrast with the sloops of the Condor and Cadmus classes, which resembled contemporary sailing windjammers with a bowsprit and figurehead, a high freeboard, and a raised poop deck aft.

Internally, the class also adopted the defining characteristic of the protected cruiser, positioning the coal bunkers to act as a form of armour around the vital spaces.

The loss of sailing capabilities made long-range deployment problematic, as the gunboats now had to travel with extra coal supply heaped on their open decks, and their engines struggled to propel them on sustained ocean-crossing voyages.

HMS Thistle eventually reverted to a practical sailing rig in 1919, but adopted a progressively simplified arrangement, going from a brig to a ketch and finally becoming a sort of cutter.

She spent her entire active career around the western and southern coasts of Africa, covering a vast and varied zone from Gibraltar to the Limpopo River.

During her career she participated in the Boer War of 1899–1902, where she was one of the first British ships equipped with radio, and in 1914, she played a prominent role in a successful Allied naval campaign against German West Africa, defeating the armed steamer Nachtigal in a ship-to-ship engagement.

In the later stages of her career, HMS Dwarf appears to have spent periods in reserve at Gibraltar and may have only been put into commission when a ship with her shallow-draught capabilities was specifically needed.

In varied pre-war duties in West Africa and on the Yangtze, she played a role in the introduction of football in Nigeria, and single-handedly attempted to contain the unrest in Hankou which precipitated the 1912 Revolution.

She arrived too late to assist in the destruction of SMS Königsberg, but she played a successful role in the amphibious landings in German East Africa and the defense of Portuguese Mozambique.