Gadow was born in Stary Kraków (Pomerania), the son of an inspector of the Prussian royal forests.
[5][6] In 1884 Gadow succeeded Osbert Salvin as Curator of the Strickland Collection at Cambridge University, as well as being appointed Lecturer on the Morphology of Vertebrates.
In 1897 Gadow published In Northern Spain, the book that gathered together the very interesting observations on geography, ethnography, and fauna and flora he had made.
[5] Gadow's publications included Classification of the Vertebrata (1898), a translation of Haeckel's work entitled The Last Link (1898) and the articles on anatomy in Alfred Newton's Dictionary of Birds.
[8] His wife Clara Maud Gadow (née Paget) is commemorated in the scientific name of one species of Mexican lizard, Sceloporus gadoviae.