Hans Winthrop Mortimer

Hans Winthrop Mortimer (1734–1807) was a British property speculator and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1775 and 1790.

He was defeated again in the 1774 general election but was returned on petition after gross corruption by his opponent, Thomas Rumbold was exposed.

From 1800 he was developing the eastern portion occupied by the northern part of Gower Street with shops and housing.

Thomas Oldfield parliamentary historian and political reformer, wrote about Shaftesbury in the 1816 edition of his Representative History (iii.

405-6 “A majority of the houses in this borough was purchased about the year 1774 by the late Hans Winthrop Mortimer, a gentleman who at that time possessed a fortune of £6000 per annum and £30,000 in ready money, but his contests in this borough and the petitions and lawsuits arising out of them are known to have caused his ruin; and ... [he] was confined for some years a prisoner for debt within the walls of the Fleet prison”.