[2] During the winter of 1919–1920, she made several cruises in the Baltic Sea, participating in the British campaign against Bolshevik and German forces in Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.

[4] On 8 October 1923, Venomous recommissioned at Chatham for service in the Mediterranean Fleet,[6] in which she operated until 1929 with Valletta, Malta, as her home port.

That month, Venomous was assigned to the 16th Destroyer Flotilla at Portsmouth, England, to escort troop convoys carrying the British Expeditionary Force from the United Kingdom to France.

[12] On 22 May she escorted the Isle of Man ferry Mona Queen as she transported British Army troops of the Irish Guards to Boulogne, returning to England with 212 refugees aboard.

After British aircraft arrived on the scene at 19:20 hours, Whitshed and Vimiera entered the harbour first, taking aboard as many British soldiers as possible – over 550 men each – under fire from German forces before steaming back out of the harbour at 20:25 hours, with Whitshed completely destroying two German tanks at point-blank range with her 4.7-inch (120-mm) guns as she departed.

A German shell, probably from a tank, hit Venetia, starting a fire aft and prompting her crew to jettison her torpedoes and burning Carley floats.

All heavy German guns fell silent after this and, given a reprieve, Venetia, which had been hit seven times and been unable to embark any troops, was quickly refloated and backed out of the harbour at full speed at 20:48 hours.

[2][7] Venomous was released from operations related to the Battle of France on 7 June 1940 and reassigned to convoy defence and anti-invasion patrols in the North Sea, which she conducted through August 1940.

She and the destroyer Wivern were escorting Convoy FN 19 off Great Yarmouth on 11 June 1940 when they came under attack by six German aircraft, but she used skilful manoeuvring to avoid damage.

She was operating as part of the escort for Convoy HX 96 when she struck a mine in Liverpool Bay on 31 December 1940 and suffered serious damage, forcing to her to undergo repairs that were not complete until February 1941.

She was escorting Convoy OB 343 off Iceland in July 1941 when she was forced to detach and return to Londonderry for repairs to her propulsion machinery, which lasted until September 1941.

She was withdrawn from service and in December 1941 work began at Greenock, Scotland, both to repair her and convert her into a long-range escort, as well as to install Type 271 surface warning radar.

[2] While under repair, Venomous was "adopted" by the civil community of Loughborough in Leicestershire, England, in a Warship Week campaign than ran from 5 to 14 February 1942.

[2][7][16] When her repairs, conversion, and radar installation were complete, she reported to the Home Fleet on 20 April 1942 for duty escorting Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union.

When Operation Bellows was complete, Venomous steamed to Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands to rejoin the Home Fleet for another period of Arctic convoy duty.

[2] Venomous detached from the Home Fleet in October 1942 to escort military convoys to Gibraltar on their way to the Allied amphibious landings in French North Africa in Operation Torch, scheduled for early November 1942.

Relieved of escorting Marne by the corvette Jonquil, Venomous proceeded to Casablanca in French Morocco with 568 Hecla survivors aboard.

[2] Venomous remained out of service throughout the first half of 1944 and was decommissioned to undergo conversion into a target ship for use in training aircrews in anti-shipping attacks, with additional duty as a tender.

[2] After the surrender of Germany in early May 1945, Venomous was decommissioned and placed in reserve;[2] by October 1945, she no longer appeared on the Royal Navy's active list.

[7][16] Venomous' captain, John McBeath appeared in The World at War episode "Alone" (1973), where he discussed the ship's role in the evacuation of Dunkirk.