He started work with the local organ builder Rushworth & Dreaper in the late 1900s, moving to their Singapore office in 1911, and later to Hong Kong.
[5] The strain of keeping things going almost alone throughout the war exhausted him, and he asked for early retirement at the end of 1947.
As a composer, Peterkin wrote mostly songs and a few short piano pieces, such as the suites Dreamer's Tales (1918), Betel-Jade-Ivory (1920) and Centaurs.
[9] His best known song, 'I Heard a Piper Piping', is a setting of words by Seumas O'Sullivan, the pen name of poet James Starkey (1879-1958).
Peterkin also wrote a number of songs setting words by his wife Marie (née Lang; died 1960).