Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky (15 February 1828 – 7 September 1868) was a Prussian adventurer, artist, newspaper correspondent and soldier in New Zealand, Australia, California, Mexico and the Mosquito Coast of Central America.

Gustav Ferdinand von Tempsky was born in Braunsberg, East Prussia, into a Prussian noble family.

In 1846, tiring of the routine, von Tempsky left the regiment after only nine months for the Prussian settlement on the Mosquito Coast of Central America.

[3] He accepted a commission to command a force of Mosquito Indians, which had been set up by Britain, but after his friend the British Consul-General slipped overboard and was devoured by alligators, he lost his taste for that adventure and headed to the American West.

In the aftermath, von Tempsky took his family via the ship Benjamin Heape across the Tasman to New Zealand, departing Melbourne on 13 February 1862.

Upon the outbreak of war in 1863 von Tempsky moved to Drury, just south of Auckland, where he was a correspondent for The Daily Southern Cross newspaper.

Soon afterwards, on 26 August 1863, Governor Grey responding to a suggestion by Captain Jackson naturalised von Tempsky as a British subject and made him an ensign in the Forest Rangers.

The Forest Rangers were an irregular volunteer force intended to take the war into the bush and to fight the enemy Māori on their own ground.

Very early on it was realised that the weapons and equipment used by the British Army were unsuited to irregular warfare in the dense wet New Zealand bush.

With only about 100 men in the Forest Rangers at any one time, it was relatively easy to gather special equipment although in the early period in the Hunua Ranges, they were fobbed off with second-hand revolvers, most of which were unserviceable.

When von Tempsky formed his own 2nd company for service in Taranaki, he had 30 or more large Bowie knives made by a cutler in Symonds Street, Auckland, from the spring steel of a cart.

With its short barrel, light weight, breech loading and waterproofed cartridge unit, it was the ideal weapon for the mainly close quarter fighting.

Von Tempsky himself carried two Colt Navy .36 pistols and was able to obtain more of these smaller calibre revolvers for his unit.

A few days later, Tempsky, called "Von" by some of his men, was promoted to captain and was also commissioned to raise a second company of Forest Rangers.

After a brief holiday in Auckland, von Tempsky took part in the Tauranga Campaign (although it is not clear in what capacity) and was present at the siege of Ōpōtiki.

Finding that, when he got there, he would be expected to serve under an officer he considered junior to himself, von Tempsky joined the mutiny and refused to accept any further orders.

While in command of the fort at Patea, von Tempsky was told that an unfinished redoubt about seven kilometres away was under heavy attack.

In his report of 21 August 1868, Von Tempsky singled out the Marist priest Fr Jean-Baptiste Rolland for his bravery under fire as he tended the wounded – Catholic and Protestant – on the battle line.

[13] In 1965, Tonga Awikau,[14] aged 101, described how as a child he had seen this cremation of 20 British dead, including Major von Tempsky.

More descendants of Gustavus von Tempsky remain in New Zealand, especially in the Hawkes Bay area through the Thomson family.