George Gauld (October 26, 1732 - June 8, 1782) was a Scottish surveyor, painter, and military engineer active in the mid to late 18th century. Gauld was born in Ardbrack, Banffshire, Scotland and educated at King's College, Aberdeen. He subsequently served in 1861 briefly on the HMS Deptford while it was testing John Harrison's revolutionary marine chronometer. He served in North America during the French and Indian War (1754 - 1763). In the immediate aftermath of the war, between 1764 and 1781, he was made Surveyor General of West Florida assigned to survey the coast. Gauld's survey efforts ended in 1781 when Spain besieged Pensacola and invaded West Florida, capturing him. It is not clear if his survey work found its way into Spanish hydrographic charts, but it may have been incorporated into general Direccion Hidrografía knowledge. Gauld was repatriated to England in 1782 and died shortly after. His survey work remained unpublished throughout the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783), when the valuable data might have fallen into rebel hands. It remained the best and most detailed survey of the Gulf Coast until the work of the U.S. Coast Survey in the 1840s.



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