Athelstan Rendall

Athelstan Rendall (16 November 1871 – 12 July 1948) was a Liberal Party, later Labour politician in the United Kingdom.

Rendall was the son of Henry Rendall JP of Bridport in Dorset. He was educated at University College School. In 1897 he married Amy, daughter of J J Young JP of Northend, Portsmouth. They had one daughter. Amy Rendall died in 1945 and Rendall was remarried in 1946 to Beatrice Sophia, the daughter of Captain A W Brooke-Smith RNR.

After first working as a journalist, Rendall trained as a solicitor, passing the Law Society final examinations in January 1894 and practising at Yeovil. After he left Parliament, Rendall reverted to the law and was a partner in the firm of Rendall, Litchfield and Co. of Bournemouth.

In 1895, Rendall joined the Fabian Society but his political affiliation at this time was still Liberal, as reflected by his membership of the Cobden Club, and by 1905 he had been selected as a Liberal Parliamentary candidate.

He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Thornbury constituency in Gloucestershire at the 1906 general election, and held the seat until his defeat at the 1922 general election by the Conservative Party candidate Herbert Charles Woodcock. In 1918 Rendall had stood as a supporter of the Coalition government of David Lloyd George. He was not opposed by the Conservatives, though he did defeat a National Party candidate, and had presumably been in receipt of the Coalition Coupon. However, by 1920 he had fallen out with the Coalition, writing to his local Liberal Association to explain that he was dissatisfied by what he described as the government’s tremendous and unjustified commitment of British money and lives in Mesopotamia at the same time as their inability to end waste and extravagance at home. He went and sat on the opposition benches.

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