Construction at Hawthorn Leslie's Newcastle upon Tyne shipyard began in 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, and the ship was launched and completed in 1915.

[4] Three sets of Brown-Curtis steam turbines were fed by four Yarrow three-drum boilers, rated at 36,000 shaft horsepower (27,000 kW), which gave a speed of 34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph).

[6][3] Up to 515 tons of oil fuel could be carried, giving a range of 4,290 nautical miles (7,950 km; 4,940 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

[10] Marksman was still part of the 12th Destroyer Flotilla at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May-1 June 1916, operating in support of the Grand Fleet.

[11] During the night of the battle, the flotilla was still largely intact, with Faulknor leading eight destroyers and Marksman following with a further four (Opal, Menace, Munster and Mary Rose).

At about 01:43 hr Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) (02:43 CET), Faulknor spotted a group of German battleships and manoeuvred to set up a torpedo attack.

In avoiding collision, Marksman lost touch both with the enemy and her four destroyers, and so did not take place in the flotilla's torpedo attack, which resulted in the German pre-dreadnought battleship Pommern being sunk.

As part of these operations, Marksman and sister ship Gabriel patrolled the Fair Isle channel between the Orkney and Shetland Islands from 11 to 13 July.

The submarine was detected by hydrophones of the force near the island of Suðuroy and the destroyer Beagle dropped depth charges twice, but U-151 escaped unharmed.