Of Scottish descent (from Orkney), his family returned to the United States when he was ten years old, and he was raised under the aegis of his uncle, Isaac Norton Rendall, a minister.

[4] He succeeded his late uncle, Isaac Norton Rendall, as Lincoln's president in 1906, serving until his death eighteen years later.

[1][5] As president, John Ballard Rendall was popular and respected (and known to participate in the students' rough-and-tumble football games) but a poor fiscal manager.

[1][5] Rendall served as a trustee of Wilson College, moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of Pennsylvania, delegate to the 1912 Republican National Convention, justice of the peace of Lower Oxford Township (where Lincoln University was located), and president of the Ministers' Social Union of Philadelphia and Vicinity in 1914–1915.

[7] Rendall died after a long illness involving pernicious anemia on September 3, 1924, in Lower Oxford Township.