HMS Rodney was a battleship of the Victorian Royal Navy, a member of the Admiral class of warships designed by Nathaniel Barnaby.

The main artillery fired a shell weighing 1,250 pounds (570 kg), which would penetrate 27 inches (690 mm) of iron plate at 1,000 yards (910 m).

[4][5][6] In early March 1897, with the British consul at Canea, Alfred Biliotti, aboard, she took part in an International Squadron operation to rescue Ottoman soldiers and Cretan Turk civilians at Kandanos, Crete.

She joined other ships in putting ashore an international landing party at Selino Kastelli on Crete′s southwest coast for the four-day expedition, which was placed under the command of Rodney's Captain John Harvey Rainier.

Thereafter she was the coastguard ship based on the Firth of Forth under the command of Captain Gerald Walter Russell until February 1901,[12] when she sailed to Chatham for a refit.