ABSTRACTThis paper shows the New South Wales Corps as a changing entity with a considerable impact on the New South Wales economy until 1810. Findings include the large number of men (1,645) who served in New South Wales, while the total population was less than 5,000, and the importance of the Corps as a source of free settlers in the period before free immigration. Convicts were recruited locally and as a group outweighed arrivals from the Savoy Military Prison, cited in the past as the bad element in the Corps. The Corps contained a reasonably high proportion of skilled men who contributed formally and informally to the colony’s productivity both before and after discharge. The study shows that the officer group was relatively stable before 1800 but that turnover was fairly high thereafter. Finally it is shown that the influence of the New South Wales Corps did not cease with its recall, for well over half the regiment remained in the colony, some seventy–one as settlers and 356 as troops under Macquarie’s command — including a special Veteran Corps.