Lieutenant Governor Gooch, when he arrived in 1727, was the first to tell the Virginia General Assembly members of the death of George I and the succession of George II. Goochland County was named after him when it was formed in 1728. (Ten years later, the residents of a new community in the Shenandoah Valley named it after his wife, Lady Rebecca Staunton.)
Gooch started off where Spotswood finished, as an advocate for Virginia's interests rather than as a representative from the King. By Gooch's time the power of Parliament had begun to eclipse that of the king, and Gooch was under less pressure than preceding lieutenant governors to maintain the prerogatives of the monarch. Gooch was a very popular lieutenant governor, claiming in 1746 that "I have ruled without so much as a murmur of discontent in my administration."