[1] The ships carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of 2,600 nautical miles (4,800 km; 3,000 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

She was laid down on 28 July 1917 by William Beardmore and Company at Dalmuir, Scotland, and launched on 3 May 1918. the ship was commissioned on 21 June 1918.

After the United Kingdom entered World War II in September 1939, Vanity was assigned to the 15th Destroyer Flotilla at Rosyth, Scotland, for convoy escort and patrol duties in the North Sea.

Vanity interrupted her regular duties in January 1942 to take part in Operation Performance, steaming to Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands to deploy with the Home Fleet to cover the break-out of merchant ships from Sweden into the North Sea via the Danish straits.

Vanity was decommissioned soon after Germany's surrender – she no longer was carried on the Royal Navy's active list as of July 1945 – and was placed in reserve.