In early 1904 work commenced at Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering in Glasgow, Scotland. The liners were designed by Francis Elgar and were specified to be twin screw liners with service speeds of up to . Both were of identical appearance, with two funnels and two masts, with equal passenger capacity of just over 1,500. In the early planning stages, their intended names were to have been "Empress of Germany" and "Empress of Austria", but were later changed respectively to "Empress of Britain" and "Empress of Ireland", following the implementation of a policy that any future Canadian Pacific ship named in the "Empress" format would be respectively named after a dependency or colony of the British Empire.