Royton, Lancashire Genealogy

Guide to Royton, Lancashire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: chapelry register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Chapelry History
ROYTON, a chapelry, in the parochial chapelry, parliamentary borough, and union of Oldham St Mary, Lancashire, parish of Prestwich St Mary, Lancashire, hundred of Salford, S. division of Lancashire, 2 miles north by west of Oldham, on the road to Rochdale. There are places of worship for Independents, Wesleyans, and the Society of Friends.

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Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
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Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day.
 * See England Civil Registration for online resources and information.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Churches and chapels in Royton
Royton had no medieval church of its own, and for ecclesiastical purposes, lay within the parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham in the Diocese of Lichfield, until 1541, when this diocese was divided and Royton became part of the Diocese of Chester. This in turn was divided in 1847, when the present Diocese of Manchester was created. For ritual baptisms, marriages and burials, the people of Royton, a Christian community, had to travel to churches that lay outside of the township's boundaries, including Oldham St Mary, Lancashire, St Leonard's Middleton, Lancashire or  Prestwich St Mary, Lancashire.

The Religious Society of Friends were recorded as holding conventicles in Heyside in as early as the 1650s. A Baptist meeting place was erected in 1775. Congregational preachers regularly visited Royton, but it was not until 1854 that a workshop was established in the town. Primitive Methodism was established in Royton in a room in a Royley building, with its first purpose-built church being erected in 1867.

Roman Catholicism in Royton after the English Reformation began in 1874, when a disused factory was used as a chapel. Sir Percival Radcliffe, the then owner of Royton Hall, gave land and £2,000 towards the construction of a new Catholic school-chapel which opened in 1880; the local priest lived at Royton Hall. A rectory was built in 1901 and in 1966 the church, dedicated to saints Aidan and Oswald, was rebuilt. Royton, which forms part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford, continues to have a Catholic community, supported by Our Lady's R.C. High School.

The Lancashire Online Parish Clerk website contains a listing of all denominations in the Oldham area (see below).

Church Records
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Chapelry is a church or churches built in a large ecclesiastical parish to help the members attend worship services closer to their homes.

Online Parish Records Table

Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Lancashire ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Lancashire ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * OnLine Parish Clerks - Lancashire - OnLine Parish Clerks project for Lancashire

Non-Conformist Churches (All other Religions)

 * 1647-1996 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Lancashire Online Parish Clerk
A valuable resource is the online information provided by the Online Parish Clerk at With links to Baptisms, marriages and burials for the parish with surname index.

Poor Law unions
Oldham Poor Law Union

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Lancashire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Taxation

 * 1541 - 1541 Subsidy of Ryton (p. 145)
 * 1622 - 1622 Subsidy of Ryton (p. 158)

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Websites
For information about the parish

For information about Oldham West Denery of the Diocese of Manchester

British History online

Royton History Society web page

GENUKI page