Eyre Coote (East India Company officer)
British Army general (1726-1783)
Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote, KB (c. 1726 – 28 April 1783) was an Anglo-Irish army officer and politician who represented Leicester and Poole in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1768 to 1780. He is best known for his many years of service with the Bengal Army in India, where his victory at the Battle of Wandiwash was considered a turning point in the struggle for control over the region between Britain and France. Coote was known by his sepoy troops as Coote Bahadur (Coote the Brave).
Early life
A member of the Coote family headed by the Earl of Mountrath, he was born in Kilmallock, near Limerick, Ireland, the son of the Reverend Chidley Coote and Jane Evans, daughter of George Evans, and sister of George Evans, 1st Baron Carbery. He entered the 27th Regiment of Foot. He first saw active service in the Jacobite rising of 1745, and later obtained a captaincy in the 39th Regiment, the first regular British regiment to serve in India.
Career in India
Recapture of Calcutta
In 1756 a part of the regiment, then quartered at Madras, was sent forward to join Robert Clive in his operations against Calcutta which had recently been captured by the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, which had been followed by the Black Hole of Calcutta. The city was reoccupied without difficulty in January 1757. However, Coote and Clive argued so violently over who should reoccupy Fort William that they almost fired at each other, which began a lifelong rivalry and hatred between the two men.
Plassey
Coote was soon given the local rank of major for his good conduct in surprising the camp of the Nawab of Bengal.
“Eyre Coote (East India Company officer)” enters the record as british Army general (1726-1783). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Eyre, Coote and East can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2613325. VIAF identifies the subject as 48787343. The Library of Congress control number is no90022402. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1726, 1783, 1768 and 1780.
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