Eyre Coote, GCB
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General Sir Eyre Coote (1760 – 1823) was a British soldier who was born in Ireland. He was the second son of the Very Rev. Charles Coote (1713 – 12 February 1776, married on 31 July 1753 to Grace Tilson, who died 1 January 1767), DD, Dean of Kilfenora, brother of Charles Henry Coote (1754-1823), who succeeded the last Earl of Mountrath as 2nd Baron Castle Coote in 1802, and nephew of Sir Eyre Coote, KB, the celebrated Indian General, to whose vast estates in England and Ireland he eventually succeeded.
Following studies at Eton and Trinity College Dublin, Coote purchased a commission in the 34th Regiment of Foot - of which his uncle was colonel - in 1774. He soon found himself bound for North America to fight in the Revolutionary War, seeing action in Brooklyn in August 1776, Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth Court House before finally being taken prisoner at the final Battle of Yorktown in 1781.
He served in England and Ireland when they were threatened by French invasion and against the French on the Continent. He went on to serve in Holland, Egypt and eventually became Governor-General of Jamaica (1806-1808) where he possibly sired an ancestor of Colin Powell[citation needed] .
As Rev. William Cooper refers in his History of the Rod. Flaggellation and the Flaggellants (1870), Sir Eyre was removed from the service on the 21st May 1816 because of the scandal he caused in the Christ's Hospital school for boys. On 25th Nov. 1815 he entered the school and offered some boys money for an opportunity to flog them. After that he asked them to flog him and rewarded them with money. Caught by the school nurse, he was charged for indecent conduct by the Lord Mayor of London and, after that, by the military court.
Coote lost his seat in parliament at the dissolution of 1818, and died 10 Dec. 1823. He was twice married, and left issue by both wives. His first wife, Sarah (died 1795), daughter of John Robbard, is the subject of one of George Romney's famous paintings.
The Eyre Coote Papers, owned by the Clements Library at the University of Michigan, record in full detail an entire 35-year military career in one of the most formative periods in modern American and European history.
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| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir George Nugent |
Governor of Jamaica 1806–1808 |
Succeeded by The Duke of Manchester |
