The details of the discovery of Gough Island are unclear, but the most likely occasion is July 1505 by the Portuguese explorer Gonçalo Álvares.

According to some historians, the British merchant Anthony de la Roché was the first to land on the island, in the austral autumn of 1675.

Then, in 1732, Captain Gough of the British ship Richmond reported the discovery of a new island, which he placed 400 miles (640 km) to the east of Gonçalo Álvares.

[14] It is still known by its old name Ilha de Gonçalo Álvares in Portuguese, though Portugal lays no claim to any of the islands in the Tristan da Cunha archipelago.

The earliest known example is a sealing gang from the U.S. ship Rambler (Captain Joseph Bowditch) which remained on the island in the 1804–1805 season.

[16] The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition on the Scotia made the first visit to the island by a scientific party on 21 April 1904, when William Speirs Bruce and others collected specimens.

[18] There was a brief period of human occupation for two years from 1936 to 1938 when farming was done to hunt for birds, their eggs, and to extract driftwood, guano and apples.

Gough Island was formally claimed in 1938 for the United Kingdom, during a visit by HMS Milford (L51) of the Royal Navy.

Gough Island's maximum temperatures are between 11 °C (52 °F) and 17 °C (63 °F) during the day year-round, due to its isolated position far out in the South Atlantic.

[27] Gough and Inaccessible Island are a protected wildlife reserve, which has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

In particular, it is host to almost the entire world population of the Tristan albatross (Diomedea dabbenena) and the Atlantic petrel (Pterodroma incerta).

The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International for its endemic landbirds and as a breeding site for seabirds.

[36] In April 2007, researchers published evidence that predation by introduced house mice on seabird chicks is occurring at levels that might drive the Tristan albatross and the Atlantic petrel to extinction.

[38] The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) awarded £62,000 by the UK government's Overseas Territories Environment Programme to fund additional research on the Gough Island mice and a feasibility study of how best to deal with them.

Because cold fronts approach South Africa from the south-west, the Gough station is particularly important in forecasting winter weather.

[citation needed] Each year, a new overwintering team arrives by ship from Cape Town (beginning in 2012, the S. A. Agulhas II) to staff the weather station and perform scientific research.

On 11 February 2014, a member of the research team choked to death on the island and his body was taken back to South Africa.