H.M.S. Marlborough was one of the four "Iron Duke" Class battleships ordered in the 1911 building programme and laid down early the following year. Built in the naval dockyard at Devonport, she was launched on 24 October 1912 by Lady Gwendoline Churchill and eventually completed in June 1914 having cost almost (1,900,00. Displacing 25,820 tons, she measured 580 feet in length overall with a 90 foot beam and her main armament consisted of 10 13in. guns. Additionally armed with 126in. guns - she and her sisters being the first British 'dreadnoughts' to mount this calibre weapon - her powerful Parsons' turbines gave her a top speed of 21½ knots on her trials although she never did more than 20 knots whilst under full load during wartime. Upon completion Marlborough was commissioned first into the Home Fleet as 2nd Flagship but was almost immediately transferred to the Grand Fleet as Flagship to Sir Lewis Bayley, commanding the 1st Battle Squadron. Bayley was succeeded by Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney in December 1914 and he kept his flag in Marlborough for the duration of the War during which she led her squadron at the Battle of Jutland (31 May - 1 June 1916). Accredited with several hits on German warships in the opening phases of the battle, Marborough herself was torpedoed [fired, it was believed, from the enemy light cruiser Wiesbaden] at 6.55 p.m. on 31 May although initially she was merely slowed to 17 knots. During the night however, rising water in her hull caused her to withdraw from the action at 2 a.m. the next morning and she was towed to Immingham, on the Humber, under destroyer escort. Repaired on the Tyne in three months, she returned to service for the remainder of the War, being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in March 1919.
Arriving in the Mediterranean, she was immediately despatched to Yalta, in the Crimea, where she embarked the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna [the sister of Queen Alexandra] and other members of the Russian Imperial family who were fleeing from the Bolsheviks in the wake of the Revolution and its subsequent counter offensives. Having landed her refugees at Malta, Marlborough returned to the Black Sea where she bombarded the Bolshevik positions in an attempt to slow their advance through the Crimean Peninsular. The following year (1920), she landed seamen and marines in Constantinople during the post-War unrest there but went home in November for a major refit lasting two years. Recommissioned in 1922, she was finally withdrawn from service in April 1931, another victim of the Washington [disarmament] Treaty, and broken up at Rosyth in 1932. Her passing marked the end of an era in the history of the Royal Navy in that she and her three sisters [Iron Duke, Benbow and Emperor of India] were the last coal burning battleships to be built for the fleet which was therafter to be oil-fired.