To achieve the higher speed while keeping displacement from growing, White was forced to reduce the ships' armour protection significantly, effectively making the ships enlarged and improved versions of the Canopus-class battleships of 1896, rather than derivatives of the more powerful Majestic, Formidable, and London series of first-class battleships.

The Duncans proved to be disappointments in service, owing to their reduced defensive characteristics, though they were still markedly superior to the Peresvets they had been built to counter.

The Duncan-class ships were powered by a pair of 4-cylinder triple-expansion engines that drove two screws, with steam provided by 24 Belleville boilers.

[3] Albemarle had a main battery of four 12-inch (305 mm) 40-calibre guns mounted in twin-gun turrets fore and aft.

[2] Albemarle was commissioned at Chatham Dockyard on 12 November 1903 for service as Flag extra, Rear Admiral, for the second division of the Mediterranean Fleet.

Under Captain Robert Falcon Scott's command, she collided with the battleship HMS Commonwealth on 11 February 1907, suffering minor bow damage.

[7] In July 1908, Albemarle visited Canada during the Quebec Tercentenary, in company with her sister ships Exmouth, Duncan, and Russell.

On 15 May 1913, she was reduced to a nucleus crew and assigned to the 6th Battle Squadron, Second Fleet, to serve as a gunnery training ship.

[7] When the First World War began in August 1914, plans originally called for Albemarle and battleships Agamemnon, Cornwallis, Duncan, Exmouth, Russell, and Vengeance to form the 6th Battle Squadron and serve in the Channel Fleet, where it was to patrol the English Channel and cover the movement of the British Expeditionary Force to France.

[14] In November 1915, Albemarle was ordered to move to the Mediterranean with a division of the 3rd Battle Squadron that also included the battleships Hibernia (the flagship), Zealandia, and Russell.

The ships left Scapa Flow on 6 November 1915, but encountered extremely heavy weather that night in the Pentland Firth.

In January 1916, Albemarle was detached from the Grand Fleet to serve in North Russia at Murmansk as a guard ship and as an icebreaker in the approaches to Arkhangelsk.

Albemarle returned to the United Kingdom in September 1916, paying off at Portsmouth to provide crews for anti-submarine vessels.

Albemarle was in reserve until April 1919, used as an overflow accommodation ship for the naval barracks at Devonport, and was attached to the Gunnery School in 1919.