Peel was born in London, Ontario, and received his art training from his father from a young age. Later he studied under William Lees Judson and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia under Thomas Eakins. He later moved to Paris, France where he received art instruction at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Jean-Leon Gerome and at the Académie Julian under Benjamin Constant, Henri Doucet and Jules Lefebvre.

In 1882 he married Isaure Verdier and had two children with her: a son (Robert Andre, in 1886) and a daughter (Emilie Marguerite, in 1888).

Peel travelled widely in Canada and in Europe, exhibiting as a member of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy. He also exhibited at international shows like the Paris Salon. He was known for his often sentimental nudes and for his pictures of children; he was in fact among the first Canadian painters to explore the nude as a subject.

He contracted a lung infection and died in his sleep, in Paris, France, at the age of 32.