Spence's Hotel was a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

established in

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

in 1830. It was near the Government House. It no longer exists. Various sources describe Spence's Hotel as either the first hotel in Asia, or in India, or in Kolkata. The hotel is mentioned in

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

's '' The Steam House'' as a place where the characters stay during a visit to Kolkata. It was the inspiration for the hotel described in the Sankar's 1962 novel ''

Chowringhee Chowringhee (also Chourangi) is a neighbourhood of Central Kolkata, in Kolkata district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of West Bengal. Chowringhee Road (officially Jawaharlal Nehru Road) runs on its western side. A neighbo ...

''. On 16 January 1861

Duleep Singh Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh (6 September 1838 – 22 October 1893), also spelled Dalip Singh, and later in life nicknamed the "Black Prince of Perthshire", was the last ''Maharaja'' of the Sikh Empire. He was Maharaja Ranjit Singh's youngest son ...

met his mother Jind Kaur at the hotel. They had been separated in 1849 after the

Treaty of Lahore The Treaty of Lahore of 9 March 1846 was a peace-treaty marking the end of the First Anglo-Sikh War. The treaty was concluded, for the British, by the Governor-General Sir Henry Hardinge and two officers of the East India Company and, for the ...

when he was 10 years old and they reunited when he was age 22. From here, Singh brought his mother back with him to live in England. Because of political tension the British government choose Spence's Hotel as a neutral place where there was unlikely to be conflict.

References

Hotels in Kolkata Hotel buildings completed in 1830 Defunct hotels Demolished buildings and structures in India {{India-hotel-stub