Dear Ryan,
These will be my final thoughts. I looked and found there were a fair number of references to him in the Leicester Chronicle. He was incidentally a freemen's deputy there [a Leicester institution, this, which can be googled]. Regarding his departure this was in the issue of Saturday 1 October 1887 under the heading "Terrible Suicide of a Leicester Builder": 'Intelligence was received in Leicester late on Wednesday evening that Mr H T Mortimer, builder, of St Nicholas Street, had been found dead at Manchester with his throat cut. From inquiries since made we hear that the deceased had been very unwell for some weeks past and about a fortnight ago went to Matlock for the benefit of his health. He was visited there by some of his friends as recently as Saturday last and the family had no knowledge of his having left Matlock when the sad news of his death was received by the Head Constable (Mr J Duns) from the police authorities at Manchester. The melancholy intelligence was conveyed to Mrs Mortimer by Detective-Inspector Mardlin and some of the family, we understand, started for Manchester on Thursday morning. The deceased had for some years been in business in the town, and one of his latest undertakings was the large building in Southgate Street now in course of erection...' From other references it seems the business did not long survive him his stock-in-trade being sold off in 1888 and there was evidently some form of legal action against his estate, Pochin v Mortimer, which carried on for several years in the High Court, though it's not obvious what it was about. Good luck with the search. Though it's a sad story it doesn't lack interest and there's a slight chance there might be one or two of his buildings surviving in Leicester which still has plenty of Victorian architecture.
