Sir John Thomson Gunther CMG OBE (2 October 1910 – 27 April 1984) was an Australian public servant who spent most of his career in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

[1] Following a year of residency at Sydney Hospital, in 1935 he joined the Pacific Plantations branch of Lever Brothers, going to work as a medical officer in Gavutu and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

[2] In 1938 he married Grace Rickard-Bell and left his job with Pacific Plantations to become chair of a medical investigation into lead poisoning at Mount Isa.

He spent time in the Territory of Papua focusing on malaria prevention and was awarded diplomas in public health and tropical medicine from the University of Sydney in 1944.

He retired from the role due to ill health in 1972 and returned to Australia, initially living in Buderim in Queensland, before moving south to Melbourne.