George Taplin was a missionary and teacher and a committed Congregationalist. He arrived in Adelaide on the Anna Maria in 1849. He was recruited by Rev. Thomas Quinton Stow (1801-1862) and married Martha Burnell in 1853.

They opened a school at Port Elliott in 1854 and taught there until 1859 when the Aborigines Friends Association (See AA 1) appointed him as missionary-teacher, and he chose a settlement on the shores of Lake Alexandrina at Point McLeay (Raukkan). He was ordained by the Congregational Church in 1868.

He learned the Ngarrindjeri language and studied their culture and published bible tracts and works on anthropological studies. His most important books were:
"The Narrinyeri" (Adelaide, 1874)
"Native Tribes of South Australia", ed JD Woods; and
"The Folklore, Manners, Customs, and Languages of the South Australian Aborigines" (1879).

His son Frederick William succeeded him as superintendent of the Raukkan Mission on his death in 1879.