Middleton was a township and chapelry dependent on Holy Trinity Church in the ancient parish of Rothwell in the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It became an ecclesiastical parish after 1849. Between 1866 and 1920 it was a civil parish. Middleton was part of the Great Preston Gilbert Union from 1809 until 1862 which provided a workhouse and poor relief for the parishes within its jurisdiction. The Gilbert unions were exempt from the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 but disbanded in 1862 and after that Middleton became part of the Kirkstall Poor Law Union until 1869 when it joined the Hunslet Poor Law Union until 1920, the same year it was incorporated into the City of Leeds.