Following the success of "Hindle Wakes", Houghton left his office job in 1912 to become a full-time dramatist and moved to London, where he became part of the city's dramatic and literary culture. The following year he moved to Paris where he started to write a novel entitled "Life". During the summer of that year he developed viral pneumonia in Venice and moved back to Manchester where he died in December from meningitis. He was cremated in Manchester crematorium, leaving an estate of £5,488. He was unmarried. In 1915 a memorial tablet was unveiled in the Manchester Reference Library.