Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and the inconclusive action of 19 August, her service during World War I generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea.

The design of the Bellerophon class was derived from that of the revolutionary[Note 1] battleship HMS Dreadnought, with a slight increase in size, armour and a more powerful secondary armament.

The ship carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of 5,720 nautical miles (10,590 km; 6,580 mi) at a cruising speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

The secondary, or anti-torpedo boat armament, comprised 16 BL 4-inch (102 mm) Mk VII guns in single mounts.

[3] The Bellerophon-class ships had a waterline belt of Krupp cemented armour that was 10 inches (254 mm) thick between the fore and aftmost barbettes.

In addition, a single three-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft (AA) gun was added on the former searchlight platform between the aft turrets.

[10] By May 1916, a fire-control director had been installed high on the forward tripod mast[11] and approximately 23 long tons (23 t) of additional deck armour was added after the Battle of Jutland.

[7] On 31 July 1909 Temeraire was taking part in a Royal Review of the Fleet at Spithead when an accident with a 4-inch gun injured three men, one of whom later died.

She participated in combined fleet manoeuvres in June–July and was then reviewed by King Edward VII and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia during Cowes Week on 31 July.

On the evening of 22 November, the Grand Fleet conducted a fruitless sweep in the southern half of the North Sea; Temeraire stood with the main body in support of Vice-Admiral David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron.

[23] On the evening of 23 January, the bulk of the Grand Fleet sailed in support of Beatty's battlecruisers,[24] but they were too far away to participate in the ensuing Battle of Dogger Bank the following day.

Throughout the rest of the month, the Grand Fleet was performing numerous training exercises before making another sweep into the North Sea on 13–15 October.

On the night of 25 March, Temeraire and the rest of the fleet sailed from Scapa Flow to support Beatty's battlecruisers and other light forces raiding the German Zeppelin base at Tondern.

On 21 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a demonstration off Horns Reef to distract the Germans while the Imperial Russian Navy relaid its defensive minefields in the Baltic Sea.

[19] During the first stage of the general engagement, the ship fired five salvos from her main guns at the crippled light cruiser SMS Wiesbaden from 18:34,[Note 4] claiming two or three hits.

About ten minutes later, Temeraire engaged several German destroyer flotillas with three salvos from her main armament without result.

[34] In October, Temeraire and her sister ship, Superb, were transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet, commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir Somerset Gough-Calthorpe.

A month later, Gough-Calthorpe tasked Temeraire to provide a crew for the Russian destroyer Schastlivy, which had been turned over to the Allies by the Germans after the Armistice of 11 November.

[18] The ship remained in the Black Sea and Ottoman waters until 3 April, when she departed for home, having visited Sevastopol, Russia, and Haifa, Palestine, during her deployment.