[3] Peter attracted widespread public attention following an appearance on the BBC current affairs programme Tonight in 1958;[4][5] he also had a large fanbase in both Italy and the United States and received letters and gifts from Australia.

[5][6] In 1958 a worker at the Home Office, in response to a letter complaining that Peter's food allowance was too low, noted that he had left the chewed body of a pigeon inside his desk, and, as he had not fully eaten it, was therefore "not suffering from starvation".

[4] In October 1958 it was reported that Peter's living allowance had been raised due to rising costs; a Home Office spokesman said that "everyone seems satisfied that he does his job well".

[10] Speaking in 2017, Chris Day, the head of Modern Domestic Records at the National Archives, called Peter "the first superstar cat of Whitehall".

[15][16] He was buried in a brass-handled veneered oak coffin,[note 1] on which a nosegay of daffodils and anemones had been placed, along with a card which read "To Peter, from an animal lover";[10] this was lowered into the grave from "a purple-draped wheelbarrow".