In the same year Gouger forwarded Wakefield's pamphlet, a Sketch of a Proposal for Colonizing Australia, to the Colonial Office, but received no encouragement.

Gouger's brother soon rescued him and he began to distribute copies of the Letter, but won little support until he approached Wilmot Horton for help in forming a society for assisting pauper emigration to the colonies.

Some of these schemes were intended to be money-making, but the South Australian Association, founded in December 1833 with Gouger as honorary secretary, was principally philanthropic in its objects.

Gouger worked untiringly with Wakefield, many obstacles had to be surmounted and many compromises made, but in August 1834 the act for the establishment of South Australia became law.

On 28 December 1836, as senior member of the council, Gouger administered the oaths of office to the newly arrived governor Sir John Hindmarsh.

The quarrels between the governor and Colonel William Light caused much dissension and created many difficulties for Gouger, who was eventually suspended on a charge of having struck Osmond Gilles the colonial treasurer.

At the end of the year he was gratified to receive a present of a piece of plate from the leading colonists of South Australia as a tribute to his exertions in founding the colony.

He continued in this position until 1844 when he resigned on account of his health and returned to England on board the Symmetry, leaving Port Adelaide on 16 December 1844,[4] and sailing via Cape Town, under Captain Elder.

When they finally disagreed Gouger held firmly to his own views, and later on showed himself to be an efficient public servant during the difficult times attending the birth of the colony.