Hyder Ali
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Hyder Ali. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
hi'der a'lee (1728-1782), a distinguished soldier of India. He is considered the most formidable Asiatic rival the English have ever had in India. He was a Mohammedan descended from a fakir family. He never learned to read or write. He was the first native of India to arm a corps of sepoys with firelocks and bayonets. Macaulay calls him "a man born for conquest and command." This military adventurer rose from one position to another. In 1762 he made himself rajah, that is to say, king, of Mysore. His territory embraced 84,000 square miles and yielded an enormous revenue. He spent his time carrying on wars with surrounding princes and with the English. He brought the British empire in southern India to the verge of ruin. Only a half dozen fortified places remained under the British flag. His forces were defeated finally by the English commander, Sir Eyre Coote, in 1781. He was succeeded by his son, Tippoo Sahib, whom English historians consider an arrant knave, in rascality quite equal to his father, but without corresponding ability. See India
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an Indian prince of Arabian origin, born in Mysore in 1718. He took the field with his brother, who was in alliance with France, 1751, and in the interval between that period and 1780 acquired for himself an independent sovereignty, and nearly brought the English presidency of Madras to ruin. His death occurred at a critical period in 1782, and he was succeeded by his son, Tippoo-Sahib, who was driven from the Carnatic in 1783.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The facts of Haidar Ali's career stand, but almost every detail and judgement has been adjusted. Both accounts guess at his birth year (Aiton's 1728, Collier's 1718) where modern scholarship settles on about 1720 tthhe claim that he "made himself rajah" of Mysore in 1762 is also wrong: he ruled as de facto master while the Wodeyar rajas remained nominally on the throne, and he never took the royal title himself. Aiton's line that his forces "were defeated finally" by Sir Eyre Coote in 1781 overstates Porto Novo; Haidar fought on and died of illness in December 1782, the Second Anglo-Mysore War ending only with the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784. The sharpest change is tone. Where Aiton's repeats English historians calling his son Tipu Sultan "an arrant knave", Indian historiography since independence has treated both men as early and effective resisters of British expansion, and Tipu's memory is now a live political argument in Karnataka rather than a settled verdict.
Written for this edition, 2026.