Late deliveries of her main guns delayed her commissioning until 1891 and she spent most of the decade with the Mediterranean Fleet.

[3] The ships were powered by a pair of three-cylinder, vertical inverted, triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, which were designed to produce a total of 12,000 indicated horsepower (8,900 kW) and a maximum speed of 16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph) using steam provided by six cylindrical boilers with forced draught.

The Trafalgar class carried a maximum of 1,100 long tons (1,118 t) of coal which gave them a range of 6,300 nautical miles (11,700 km; 7,200 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

[4] The Trafalgar-class ships' main armament consisted of four breech-loading (BL) 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns mounted in two twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure.

[4] The muzzles of these guns were only 3 feet 6 inches (1 m) above the deck, and were very hard to fight in a seaway[5] due to the spray breaking over the forward turret.

[6] When the battleships Victoria and Camperdown collided on 22 June 1893, Nile was next astern and it was only through the skillful manoeuvring of Captain Gerard Noel that his ship was not also involved in the collision.

[16] She paid off at Devonport in February 1903, when her captain and crew transferred to HMS Royal Oak which took her place in the Home Fleet.