[1] Peake's family migrated from Chelsea, London in 1862, initially settled in Victoria, before moving to South Australia two years later.

He resigned his position as district clerk when he entered politics, and afterward was in business at Mount Barker as a member of the firm of auctioneers, Monks and Peake.

Peake was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly as the Member for Albert[1] representing Naracoorte.

However, Peake and his party resisted a change to the arrangements and it was only his good relationships with Price that held the coalition together.

In the same year, the LDU merged with the two independent conservative parties to form the Liberal Union under Peake's leadership.

Peake's Government created the Industrial arbitration court which established a minimum wage for state awards but limited the right to strike.

Peake was a teetotaller Presbyterian who held a plebiscite establishing six o'clock closing for hotels in 1915 which became the law in South Australia for the next fifty years.