In 1862, the Royal Navy's Pacific Squadron was relocated to Esquimalt harbour from Valparaíso, Chile (where it had used floating storeships rather than built facilities ashore).

This increased presence, eventually including storehouses and workshops ashore, required some form of coastal defence to deter naval attack by an enemy.

[1] It was not until after the Colony of Vancouver Island had joined the mainland of British Columbia in 1866, and then Canada in 1870, that the first fixed coastal defences were emplaced to protect the naval base.

while Lieutenant-Colonel De La Chevois Irwin, Inspector-General of Artillery at Kingston, Ontario, was sent (by train, across the United States) to organize the defences.

The 1893 agreement boiled down to this: The British government would supply: The Dominion of Canada would provide: The Royal Marine Artillery garrison, composed of specialists with two years' training, arrived in 1894.

Between February 1894 and October 1897, two separate forts were constructed: one at Macaulay Point (site of earlier earthwork batteries), and an entirely new location at Rodd Hill, a bluff of rock overlooking the western side of the narrow entrance to Esquimalt harbour.

Using a central observation post and remote electric dial system to pass target information, the guns were loaded and aimed while in the "down" position.

There were five types of shell on the Fort Rodd manifest in 1897: high explosive (Lyddite), armour-piercing, common pointed (for non-armoured maritime targets), and shrapnel.

The shells and shot all had the same service weight of 94 pounds (43 kg) (to simplify calculation of elevation and depression) and diameter of 6 inches (150 mm); therefore, lengths of the various types varied.

Annual training schemes brought both Imperial and Colonial troops into sham battles and exercises, including a full-scale night assault on Fort Rodd Hill and Esquimalt naval base in 1902.