In 1834, he was apprenticed to the merchants Bulley, Job and Company operating in St. John's.

Rendell, a supporter of union with Canada, was named to the colony's Legislative Council in 1874.

He served as a founding member and president of the St. John's Agricultural Society.

As a hunter, Rendell helped implement the introduction of snowshoe hares, now an important small game animal and food source on the island,[1] from Nova Scotia.

He resigned from business and returned to England in 1881 because of ill health due to asthma, later dying in Coffinswell at the age of 73.