The History of the Village of Oulton

The village of Oulton is situated to the Southwest of Leeds on the road towards Pontefract and Wakefield in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the UK. No official history of the village has been published although I understand that work has started on a publication by the Oulton Society. Perhaps the most significant recent historian of the village was the Rev. Geoffrey Hamish Mercer who was Vicar of the Parish of St. John The Evangelist from 1936 to 1960. During the period of his incumbency he set about the compilation of a History of Oulton which was intended ti be an addition to the book A History of Rothwell by Batty. To this end he compiled three hardback notebooks recording his research. In addition to these three main note books there is a further book entitled a History of Rothwell, although it has in fact hardly anything to do with Rothwell. It is chiefly concened with the Oulton graveyard and Mercer's early genealogy notes. In addition to the books there is also a collection of newspaper cuttings and scraps of comments, all unindexed, which might well be included in his final notes.

Mr Mercer was a great friend of ours and when I learned that he was to deposit his work with the Yorkshire Archeological Society I managed to persuade him that they would be better placed in the Reference Library in Rothwell, Leeds. I was pleased that he agreed to do that and these documents are available there for study on request.

I was concerned that there were no copies of these documents and during a time when the library was closed for rebuilding I was allowed to scan them and so there is a CD of all the documents still preserved in case of theft or loss by any other means. I have a copy of that CD.

Apart from the great wealth of meticulous notes taken from the Calverley deeds and others, and an enormous amount or oral history, there is also the result of much genealogical research. All the older Oulton families are represented and in some cases the records go back a number of centuries. In my own family, for example, there are some records back to 1760. There is an index to the family trees drawn up by Mr Mercer but I would warn the researcher that his notes are not always easy to read but if you are unable to read his spidery script please send me an email and I will try to help.