"Rodney", named for Admiral Lord George Rodney, was the sixth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. Given the yard number 904, she was laid down on 28 December 1922 as part of the 1922 Naval Programme at Cammell Laird's shipyard in Birkenhead and was launched on 17 December 1925 by Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles, after three attempts at cracking the bottle of Imperial Burgundy. She was completed and her trials began in August 1927 and she was commissioned on 7 December under the command of Captain Henry Kitson. The ship cost £7,617,799. The "Nelson"-class ships received several nicknames: "Rodnol" and "Nelsol" after the Royal Fleet Auxiliary oil tankers with a prominent amidships superstructure and names ending in "ol", "The Queen's Mansions" after a resemblance between her superstructure and the Queen Anne's Mansions block of flats, the "pair of boot", the "ugly sisters" and the "Cherry Tree class" as they were cut-down by the Washington Naval Treaty. "Rodney"s trials resumed after she was formally commissioned and continued until she entered service on 28 March 1928. The ship was assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet (renamed as Home Fleet in March 1932) and remained so, aside from refits or repairs, until 1941. On 21 April, Kitson was relieved by Captain Francis Tottenham. The following month she headed north to Invergordon, Scotland, to join the rest of the Atlantic Fleet in the annual exercises. "Rodney" returned to the south in August, where she was the Royal Guardship during Cowes Week where the ship hosted King George V and Queen Mary of Teck on 11 August. The battleship then sailed to HM Dockyard, Devonport, to participate in a charity fund-raising Navy Week which saw 67,000 visitors come to the dockyard. "Rodney" had some work done on her hull in Glasgow's Gladstone Dock in early October.