The son of
Lieutenant Commander Ian Alexander Rodger, Royal Navy, of Arundel, Sussex, and Sara Mary, née Perceval, Rodger was educated at
Ampleforth College and
University College, Oxford, where he earned his D.Phil. degree in 1974 with a thesis titled
Naval policy and cruiser design, 1865–1890. He served for seventeen years at the
Public Record Office as an assistant keeper of public records, 1974–1991. After resigning from the public service, he began a Naval History of Britain with the support of the
National Maritime Museum, the
Navy Records Society and the
Society for Nautical Research. The museum gave him the title of Anderson Senior Research Fellow, 1992–1998. In 1999, he moved to the
University of Exeter as senior lecturer, and the following year was appointed professor of naval history. In 2007, he was elected a senior research fellow of
All Souls College, Oxford. He served as honorary secretary of the
Navy Records Society from 1976 to 1990. He is also a member and fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries of London (1985) and a fellow of the
Royal Historical Society (1980). He was elected as a
Fellow of the British Academy in 2003. In 2015 he was made a fellow of the
Society for Nautical Research. ==Awards and honours==