Early years
Rendel, the son of the engineer George Wightwick Rendel was educated at Downside School and at Queen's College, Oxford, graduating in Modern History in 1911.Diplomatic career
Rendel entered the Diplomatic Service and was the head of the Eastern Department of the Foreign Office from 1930 to 1938. In 1922 he produced a seven-page British Foreign Office document which detailed the persecution of Greeks and other minorities in the Ottoman Empire. The document drew on official reports and eyewitness testimonies by personnel who were present. Rendel stated that throughout the First World War, "it is generally agreed that about 1,500,000 Armenians perished in circumstances of extreme barbarity, and that over 500,000 Greeks were deported, of whom comparatively few survived". He then went on to describe further massacres and deportations of Greeks in the period after the Armistice. In 1937 he and his wife, Geraldine (1884–1965), crossed Arabia. Geraldine was the first European woman to be received for dinner at the royal palace in Riyadh. Rendel said of Riyadh: :"...it was a revelation to me of how fine in line and proportion modern Arabian architecture can be"." Rendel was His Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Bulgaria, but the United Kingdom broke off diplomatic relations as the country became under the control of the