He was born at Waverley in Sydney to surveyor Stephen Edward Perdriau and Grace Marion, née King.
After attending Scots College and Sydney Grammar School he was employed by Dalgety's Ltd and then began farming on the Tweed River.
During World War I he served in the Australian Imperial Force's 3rd Artillery Division and was wounded and invalided at the Battle of Passchendaele; he attained the rank of corporal.
On 5 November 1916 he married Isabella Aitchison in London, with whom he had a daughter.
A coalitionist Progressive who had joined the Nationalist Party by 1922, Perdriau was defeated in 1925.