HMS Hope was the first warship constructed by Swan Hunter and one of 20 Acorn class (later H-class) destroyers built for the Royal Navy that served in the First World War.

Pioneered by the Tribal class of 1905 and HMS Swift of 1907, using oil enabled a more efficient design, leading to a smaller vessel which also had increased deck space available for weaponry.

[5] Power was provided by Parsons steam turbines, fed by four Yarrow boilers constructed by the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company.

[4] The vessel carried 170 long tons (170 t) of fuel oil which gave a range was 1,540 nautical miles (2,850 km; 1,770 mi) at a cruising speed of 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph).

The only one of the class sourced from Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Hope was laid down at the company's Wallsend shipyard on 5 December 1909, launched on 6 September 1910,[11] and commissioned at Portsmouth on 4 March 1911.

[7][18] On 30 July 1915, Hope escorted the liner RMS Aquitania transporting troops to the Mediterranean, and SS Commodore which undertook the journey between Liverpool and Dublin every night.

[21] On 23 January 1917, the destroyer rescued the crew of the Dutch merchant ship SS Salland, sunk twenty minutes prior by the German submarine SM U-53.

[25] After the Armistice, the Royal Navy returned to a peacetime level of strength and both the number of ships and the amount of staff needed to be reduced to save money.