Spence's Hotel

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2018}}

{{Use Indian English|date=October 2018}}

File:Spence's Hotel Calcutta by Frederick Fiebig 1851.jpg in 1851]]

Spence's Hotel was a hotel established in Kolkata in 1830. It was near the Government House.{{cite web|last1=Wright|first1=Colin|title=Spence's Hotel, Calcutta|url=http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/s/019pho0000247s2u00010000.html|website=British Library|language=en|date=26 March 2009}} It no longer exists.{{cite web|author1=অযান্ত্রিক|title=Spence’s Hotel, Dalhousie Square, 1830|url=https://www.linenmart.ca/hotel-motel-supplies|website=puronokolkata|date=23 November 2013}}

File:-Spence's Hotel & St. John's Cathedral, Calcutta- MET DP146091.jpg]]

Various sources describe Spence's Hotel as either the first hotel in Asia, or in India, or in Kolkata.{{cite web|last1=Ghosh|first1=Bishwanath|title=Inside India’s oldest hotel|url=http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/Inside-India%E2%80%99s-oldest-hotel/article14483387.ece|website=The Hindu|language=en-IN|date=11 July 2016}}{{cite web|last1=Mukherjee|first1=Ps|title=Heritage structures of Bengal: The Treasury Building & Spence's Hotel: the connection|url=https://www.linenmart.ca/|website=Heritage structures of Bengal|date=10 March 2013}}{{cite web|last1=Banerjee|first1=Dibyendu|title=LEGEND OF THE LOST – Spence’s Hotel|url=http://noisebreak.com/legend-lost-spences-hotel/|website=Noise Break|date=2 August 2016}}

The hotel is mentioned in Jules Verne's The Steam House as a place where the characters stay during a visit to Kolkata.{{cite web |last1=Ghose |first1=Sandip |title=Check In, Check Out |url=https://openthemagazine.com/lounge/books/check-in-check-out/ |website=Open The Magazine |date=7 February 2020}} It was the inspiration for the hotel described in the Sankar's 1962 novel Chowringhee.{{cite web |last1=Datta |first1=Sudipta |title=Looking back at ‘Chowringhee’ by Sankar on Kolkata |url=https://www.thehindu.com/society/looking-back-at-chowringhee-by-sankar/article65544715.ece |website=The Hindu |language=en-IN |date=23 June 2022}}

On 16 January 1861 Duleep Singh met his mother Jind Kaur at the hotel.{{cite book | url=https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/koh-i-noor-9781408888841/ | title=Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing | last1=Dalrymple |first1=William | authorlink1=William Dalrymple (historian)|last2=Anand |first2=Anita |authorlink2=Anita Anand | year=2017 | pages=256-258 | isbn=9781635570762}} 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. 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.