His governorship oversaw a tumultuous period where the rights to land were bitterly contested in a three way struggle between the colonial government, Aboriginal people and wealthy graziers known as squatters.

Gipps is regarded as having brought a high moral and intellectual standard to the position of governor, but was ultimately defeated in his aims by the increasing power and avarice of the squatters.

He was deployed to other cities in Spain as well as elsewhere in Europe (although he missed the Battle of Waterloo due to his posting in Ostend, Belgium where he was preparing fortifications).

A year later, on Auckland's recommendation, Gipps was knighted and sent to Lower Canada as a Commissioner, together with the Earl of Gosford and Sir Charles Edward Grey, to examine grievances against colonial rule there.

Although the commission was a complete failure which helped to ignite the 1837 Lower Canada Rebellion, Gipps gained a reputation for political negotiation and colonial administration.

He entered into the colony at one of its most turbulent periods during which drought, economic depression, cessation of convict transportation, frontier conflict with Aboriginal people, the rise of semi-elective government, and bitter contests with powerful squatters over land seizure would all create immense difficulties for him.

[3] The British government at this time was interested in reducing the exterminatory effects of colonisation on Indigenous peoples, and in 1837 a select committee had produced a report suggesting ways to do this.

Although these actions upheld Gipps in the eyes of those concerned for Indigenous protection, the powerful squatters marked him as a dangerous enemy who interfered with their acquisition of vast tracts of Aboriginal land.

[3][5][6] Additionally, the British government requested Gipps to oversee the introduction of an Aboriginal Protectorate in the Port Phillip District of the colony.

[7][8] One of Gipps' major tasks was to try to bring some control over the "squattocracy" spreading outside the "boundaries of location" and to minimise conflict between them and the Aboriginal people who resided in these lands.

In 1839, Gipps amended an Act brought in by Governor Richard Bourke three years earlier that attempted to restrain the unauthorised occupation of Crown Lands.

This storm of protest from the squatters led to the foundation of the Pastoral Association of New South Wales and added to the already toxic resentment felt toward Gipps by the wealthy colonists which continued until his departure.

Well connected colonists and squatters such as Angus McMillan, Patrick Leslie and Arthur Hodgson were in large part a law unto themselves in how they took up land and how they dealt with the Aboriginal residents.

When Gipps was removed from the governorship in 1846, he and his appointees on the Council were the last obstacles to the squatters, who were then able to pass favourable pastoral leasing laws that increased the security of their claims and entrenched their power and wealth for at least the next fifty years.

[3] In the late 1830s the British criminal system was undergoing major reform and as a result, transportation of convicts to mainland New South Wales ceased in 1840.

Gipps presided over the implementation of this scheme and, influenced by the pro-immigration colonist John Dunmore Lang, funded it through revenue acquired by the sale of Crown Lands.

Revenues to fund policies such as the assisted migration scheme dried up and Gipps was forced to borrow large amounts of money to finance government spending.

[2][21] Gipps was a vociferous advocate for a secular government school system and wished to improve the situation in the colony where in 1844 fewer than half of the children received any form of education, whether public or private.