After the outbreak of World War I, she took part in defensive and offensive operations with the Channel Fleet, shelling German positions in Belgium through May 1915.

The Formidable-class ships were powered by a pair of 3-cylinder triple-expansion engines, with steam provided by twenty Belleville boilers.

After many delays due to difficulties with her machinery contractors, HMS Venerable commissioned on 12 November 1902 by Captain George Edwin Patey for service as Second Flagship, Rear Admiral, Mediterranean Fleet.

During her Mediterranean service, she ran aground outside Algiers harbor, suffering slight hull damage, and underwent a refit at Malta in 1906–1907.

On 12 August 1907 she was relieved as flagship by battleship HMS Prince of Wales, and her Mediterranean service ended on 6 January 1908, when she paid off at Chatham Dockyard.

On 13 May 1912 she transferred to the Second Home Fleet at the Nore, and went into the commissioned reserve with a nucleus crew as part of the 5th Battle Squadron.

[7][8] When the First World War broke out in August 1914, the 5th Battle Squadron was assigned to the Channel Fleet, based at Portland.

Returning to full commission, Venerable patrolled the English Channel, and on 25 August 1914 covered the movement of the Portsmouth Marine Battalion to Ostend, Belgium,[9][10] In October 1914, Venerable was attached to the Dover Patrol for bombardment duties in support of Allied troops fighting on the front.

Later that day, she ran lightly aground on an uncharted sandbank, but was at that time out of range of German guns and was able to free herself with help from Brilliant at high tide.

The German guns along the coast had by this time been hidden, which made it far more difficult to engage them with naval gunfire, so Venerable was recalled.

The 5th Battle Squadron transferred from Portland to Sheerness on 14 November 1914 to guard against a possible German invasion of the United Kingdom.

[12][13] Venerable, in company with the tender Excellent and escorting destroyers and minesweepers, again bombarded German positions near Westende on 11 March 1915.

She steamed to the Mediterranean with the battleship Exmouth; the British hoped to take advantage of the experience both ships' crews had gained in bombarding coastal positions in Belgium.