Spence's Hotel

Spence's Hotel as photographed by Frederick Fiebig in 1851

Spence's Hotel was a hotel established in Kolkata in 1830. It was near the Government House.[1] It no longer exists.[2]

Spence's Hotel near St. John's Church

Various sources describe Spence's Hotel as either the first hotel in Asia, or in India, or in Kolkata.[3][4][5]

The hotel is mentioned in Jules Verne's The Steam House as a place where the characters stay during a visit to Kolkata.[6] It was the inspiration for the hotel described in the Sankar's 1962 novel Chowringhee.[7]

On 16 January 1861 Duleep Singh met his mother Jind Kaur at the hotel.[8] They had been separated in 1849 after the Treaty of Lahore when he was 10 years old and they reunited when he was age 22.[8] From here, Singh brought his mother back with him to live in England.[8] Because of political tension the British government choose Spence's Hotel as a neutral place where there was unlikely to be conflict.[8]

References

  1. ^ Wright, Colin (26 March 2009). "Spence's Hotel, Calcutta". British Library.
  2. ^ অযান্ত্রিক (23 November 2013). "Spence's Hotel, Dalhousie Square, 1830". puronokolkata.
  3. ^ Ghosh, Bishwanath (11 July 2016). "Inside India's oldest hotel". The Hindu.
  4. ^ Mukherjee, Ps (10 March 2013). "Heritage structures of Bengal: The Treasury Building & Spence's Hotel: the connection". Heritage structures of Bengal.
  5. ^ Banerjee, Dibyendu (2 August 2016). "LEGEND OF THE LOST – Spence's Hotel". Noise Break.
  6. ^ Ghose, Sandip (7 February 2020). "Check In, Check Out". Open The Magazine.
  7. ^ Datta, Sudipta (23 June 2022). "Looking back at 'Chowringhee' by Sankar on Kolkata". The Hindu.
  8. ^ a b c d Dalrymple, William; Anand, Anita (2017). Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 256–258. ISBN 9781635570762.

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