Colonel George Gawler KH (21 July 1795 – 7 May 1869) was the second Governor of South Australia, at the same time serving as Resident Commissioner, from 17 October 1838 until 15 May 1841.

He remained in France with the army of occupation until 1818, and in 1820 married Maria Cox of Friar Gate, Derby who was the niece of Samuel Richardson.

[1] Gawler and his wife and children arrived on the Pestonjee Bomanjee on 12 October 1838, after a four-month journey via Tenerife and Rio de Janeiro.

He persuaded Charles Sturt to come from New South Wales to work as surveyor-general, personally overseeing the surveys in the meantime, as Colonel William Light had resigned due to ailing health and the demands placed on him with insufficient staff.

Gawler appointed more colonial officials, took part in exploration, and improved the facilities at Port Adelaide during his tenure as governor.

The South Australian Company's greatest source of revenue, the sale of land, had largely dried up due to surveying delays in 1838.

[4] Droughts in other Australian colonies in 1840, before South Australia was self-sufficient in food, drove up the cost of living rapidly.

[5] In his time in office Governor Grey helped make South Australia self-sufficient in terms of agriculture and restored public confidence, though the real salvation of the colony may have been the discovery of copper at Burra in 1845.

[1] In 1845, Gawler wrote a memorandum, The Tranquillization of Syria and the East,[1] in which he suggested that Jews be allowed to establish Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine as compensation for their suffering under Turkish rule.

Accusing George Grey of dishonesty, he claimed that it had been through his efforts that South Australia was "the only cheap and brilliantly successful new colony in modern history".

Mills[7] however, accepts the view that Gawler had been guilty of carelessness and extravagance and cannot be wholly acquitted of blame, though the extraordinary difficulties with which he was faced are acknowledged.