E. Morris Miller, in Australian Literature from its Beginnings to 1935 (1940), states that Petersen was '[s]ometimes director of physical drill to the Commonwealth Military Forces' and brother of Tasmanian novelist Marie Bjelke Petersen. Besides the one anthology, there are a number of non-fiction texts attributed to Petersen under various versions of his name, including an undated report titled Growth and Development of Hobart School Boys, with Some Notes on Anthropometry, Physical Exercises on Board Ship : (Australian Imperial Force) (an undated extract from an Army physical training manual) and Physical Training : Report (1914 - possibly the text from which the extract came).
Petersen established a physical education institute in Hobart in 1892, which published a book, Bjelke-Petersen Bros. : What We Do for Children (ca 1901). The institute celebrated its centenary at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 1992 as the Bjelke-Petersen School of Physical Culture. Petersen's nephew, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, became Premier of Queensland in 1968.