Peek was born at
Wimbledon, London on 30 Jan. 1855, the only child of
Sir Henry William Peek, 1st Baronet, of Wimbledon House, Wimbledon, Surrey, a partner in the firm of Messrs. Peek Brothers & Co., colonial merchants, of East Cheap, and MP for East Surrey from 1868 to 1884. His mother was Margaret Maria, second daughter of William Edgar of Eagle House, Clapham Common. Cuthbert, after education at
Eton College, entered
Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1876 and graduated BA in 1880, proceeding MA in 1884. A Freemason, he was initiated into
Isaac Newton University Lodge while a student at Cambridge.
In Iceland and Australia After leaving Cambridge he went through a course of astronomy and surveying, and put his knowledge to practical use in two journeys, made in 1881, into unfrequented parts of
Iceland, where he took regular observations of latitude and longitude and dip of the magnetic needle (cf. his account,
Geographical Society Journal, 1882, pages 129-140). On his return he set up a small observatory in the grounds of his father's house at Wimbledon, where he observed with a 3-inch
equatorially mounted telescope. In 1882 Peek spent six weeks at his own expense at
Jimbour, Queensland, for the purpose of observing
the transit of Venus across the sun's disc in December 1882. There, with his principal instrument, an equatorially mounted
Merz telescope of 6.4 inches, he observed, in days preceding the transit, double stars and star-clusters, paying special attention to
the nebula round η Argus, one of the wonders of the Southern sky, which he described in a memoir. Observations of the transit were prevented by cloud. Peek made extensive travels in Australia and New Zealand, bringing back with him many curious objects to add to his father's collection at
Rousdon, Devon.
Scientific work In 1884 he established, on his father's estate at Rousdon, a meteorological station of the second order, and in the same year he set up there an astronomical observatory to contain the 6.4 inch Merz telescope and a transit instrument with other accessories. With the aid of his assistant Charles Grover, he began a systematic observation of the variation of brightness of
long-period variable stars, by
Argelander's method, and on a plan consistent with that of the
Harvard College Observatory. Annual reports were sent to the
Royal Astronomical Society, which Peek joined in 1884, and short sets of observations were occasionally published in pamphlet form. The complete series of the observations of 22 stars extending over sixteen years were collected at Peek's request by Professor
Herbert Hall Turner of Oxford and published by him after Peek's death in
Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society (volume 55). The introduction to the volume contains a section written by Peek in 1896 explaining his astronomical methods. With similar system regular observations were made with his meteorological instruments, and these were collected and published in annual volumes.
Learned societies On his father's death on 26 August 1898, Peek succeeded to
the baronetcy and to the estates that his father had bought in Surrey and Devon. He was elected Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries of London in 1890, was honorary secretary of the
Anthropological Society of London, and often served on the council or as a vice-president of the
Royal Meteorological Society between 1884 and his death. He endowed the
Royal Geographical Society, of whose council he was a member, with a medal for the advancement of geographical knowledge. Interested in shooting, he presented a challenge cup and an annual prize to be shot for by members of the Cambridge University Volunteer Corps. Peek died in
Brighton on 6 July 1901 of "
congestion of the brain", and was buried at Rousdon. ==Family==