Australian-born John Rendall first came to London in the late 1960s and it was there that with his friend Anthony (Ace) Bourke he first came across Christian, at that time a young cub lying in a cage in Harrods department store.
After protracted negotiations they bought Christian and raised him in Sophistocat pine furniture shop in the World’s End in Chelsea. Christian’s life in London was subsequently the subject of the Television documentary The Lion at World’s End and of a book written by Ace and John, A Lion Called Christian, which told the story of Christian’s successful rehabilitation back into the wild by George Adamson.
For the next 18 years John and George stayed in regular contact and when George was murdered in 1989 George’s assistant Tony Fitzjohn founded the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust and John became a trustee. John was an active fund-raiser for the trust which administers the Mkomazi National Park in Tanzania. John lectured at schools and led safaris to Kenya, visiting Meru National Park, where George and Joy Adamson’s lioness Elsa was rehabilitated, and Kora National Park, where Christian was rehabilitated.
Christian’s 'legacy’ is the continued interest in his unique life: the first English-born lion to be successfully rehabilitated, and the inspiration for the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust.