A year later he reached sufficient age to begin a seven-year apprenticeship to the Watermen's Company, working with his father on the wharves that would later become the site of the County Hall.

[2] The success of the 1889 London Dock Strike encouraged the river workers to form a union, the Amalgamated Society of Watermen, Lightermen and Bargemen.

[2] When the Watermen's Society was merged into the Transport and General Workers' Union in 1922, Gosling became the TGWU's first and only president, holding office until his death.

[2] During the First World War Gosling was a member of the Port and Transit Executive, the body charged with organising imports and exports by sea.

In the following year C. J. Matthew, the sitting Labour MP for Whitechapel and St Georges died, and Gosling held the seat for the party at the ensuing by-election, retaining it until his death.