Great Eastern Hotel, Old Court House Street, Calcutta, 1850s

গ্রেট ঈস্টার্ন হোটেল, ওল্ড কোর্ট হাউস স্ট্রিট, কলকাতা, c১৮৫০
The imposing palatial building of the colonial era hotel, The Great Eastern Hotel, still stands there on the Old Court House Street, Calcutta. It was established in 1840 or 1841 by David Wilson as the Auckland Hotel, named after George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, then Governor General of India. Prior to opening the hotel, Wilson ran a bakery at the same site. The hotel opened with 100 rooms and a department store on the ground floor. The Auckland was expanded in the 1860s and renamed from D. Wilson and Co. to Great Eastern Hotel Wine and General Purveying Co. In 1915, It became the Great Eastern Hotel in 1915. It was said of the hotel in 1883 that “a man could walk in at one end, buy a complete outfit, a wedding present, or seeds for the garden, have an excellent meal, a burra peg (double) and if the barmaid was agreeable, walk out at the other end engaged to be married” (City of Dreadful Night by Rudyard Kipling)
The Photograph was taken by Francis Frith in 1850s