Then in 1833 Peter Ellis the Younger of Liverpool Surveyor first appeared in the Corporation Lease Register regarding terraces of property to be built along the south east side of Great George Square and into Cookson Street. In 1835 Peter acquired a lease on property and neighbouring building land in Sandon Street (originally a part of Chatham Street). One of the properties became Peter and Mary's first home, and it was whilst they were living there that Peter submitted designs for the 1839 St George's Hall competition subsequently won by Harvey Lonsdale Elmes. In 1843 Peter acquired a lease upon which he built 78 Canning Street and in the following year he obtained a lease on neighbouring land upon which he built what became 40 Falkner Square, the house in which he and Mary lived for the remainder of Peter's life. In 1845 Peter moved his office to Clayton Square and it was whilst he was there, in 1856, that he was commissioned to design St Saviour's National Schools in Canning Street (the site now lies beneath the Liverpool Women's Hospital), and, later, the Hardman Street Homoeopathic Dispensary, opened in 1860. In the early 1860s Peter moved offices, briefly to Bank Buildings and then for a longer period to Orange Court (they lay on opposite sides of Castle Street), and it was in 1863 that a fire destroyed offices and a warehouse at the junction of Water Street and Covent Garden. The building was owned by Rev. Thomas Anderson and it was from him that Peter received the commission to design Oriel Chambers, the fire-proof replacement that was constructed upon the site (1864–65). Whilst still at Orange Court, Peter was then commissioned by the accountants Paterson and Thomas to design 16 Cook Street (1866–68), also a replacement for a pre-existing building. Quentin Hughes suggested that it was possible that Peter's career as an architect was adversely affected by criticism of Oriel Chambers, such as that which appeared in The Builder of 20 January 1866, where it was described as a "large agglommeration of protruding plate glass bubbles", a "vast abortion" without any aesthetic qualities. He also noted that although Peter practised for a further eighteen years after the Cook Street commission, his entry in the 1867 edition of Gore's Directory of Liverpool describes him as both architect and civil engineer, whilst in the 1884 directory the term "civil engineer" precedes