In Ellis' On Early English Pronunciation, one of the founding works of British linguistics, the incorrect spelling is used.

[5] One new alternative theory is that it is the place where King Osbehrt died after receiving fatal wounds when fighting the Great Heathen Army of the Vikings at York on 21 March 867.

An exceedingly rare clustering of high status Anglian graves, one bearing the Anglian royal symbol of the dragon and the name Osbehrt, was found in the churchyard at Thornhill Parish Church directly across the valley from – and within sight of – Ossett.

Low Laithes pit shut in 1926, however the seams later flooded and were responsible for the Lofthouse Colliery disaster in 1973.

Author and local resident Stan Barstow said that Ossett and Horbury were the "border country" where the north-west of the coalfield merged with the south-east of the wool towns.

Whitehead's Mill used to have a carnival float that said "We Export to the World" at the Gawthorpe May Pole parade.

During the 1970s, Woodhead Manufacturing employed 1,500 people on this site in its two premises fronting Church Street and Kingsway.

The yard and building has a large stone wall and locked iron gates to the front, which edges right up to the pavement on Church Street, and high metal fencing to the rear, which edges up to a grassed area next to the large housing estate.

Later in the war a V-1's engine was reportedly heard to cut out, and came down at Grange Moor, to the west of the town.

[6][7] Ossett was, for a brief period in the 19th century, a spa town,[8] having been founded by a local stonemason who was inspired by Harrogate and Cheltenham.

The waters were popular with those seeking relief from certain skin diseases in the early 19th century, but it remained a small spa during this period.

In the 1870s, a plan to transform Ossett into a "second Harrogate" ended in failure, and the spa closed as a result.

Between 2010 and 2024, it was part of the Wakefield constituency; the MPs during this period were Mary Creagh, Imran Ahmad Khan and Simon Lightwood.

When Ossett was part of the Dewsbury constituency, the MP was David Ginsburg, one of the Labour MPs who defected to the Social Democratic Party.

On transferring to the Normanton constituency, the MP for many years was Bill O'Brien until he entered the House of Lords and was succeeded by Ed Balls.

The Ossett ward is extremely marginal, and has been won in the 21st century by Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative and UKIP candidates at different times.

A red phone booth in Ossett town centre, opposite the Kingsway roundabout, is a grade II listed building.

Railway sidings and yards are still to be found at the old Horbury & Ossett railway station site and Healey Mills Marshalling Yard where Queen Elizabeth II spent a night aboard the Royal Train during her 1977 Silver Jubilee tour.

In June 2009, the Association of Train Operating Companies proposed Ossett, as one of seven English towns with a strong business case for the location of a new railway station.

The bus station is managed and owned by West Yorkshire Metro, and was rebuilt in 2005;[21] it has six stands and a real-time information board.

Founded in 1735 it grew out of the activity of the National Society for Promoting Education of the Poor, and its local committee formed in 1727.

When sufficient funds had been raised, a small classroom was erected on waste land facing the chapel-of-ease in Ossett.

The area given to the school increased throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and the education it offered was initially largely linked with the church.

In 1904, the old Grammar School had to move from the centre of Ossett, to make way for the construction of the new Town Hall.

Changes agreed included a decision that the School should have mixed-sex classes, the first of its kind in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

This house, with its three acres of land became the new Ossett Grammar School in September 1906, with 95 pupils and a staff of 8.

The Salvation Army building also acts as a community centre providing dinners for senior citizens & two parent & toddler groups.

The Yorkshire and the Humber branch of the Disability Sports Federation has its headquarters on the Longlands Industrial Estate in the town.

The turning on of the Christmas lights is another focal point for the community, along with the fire station's bonfire on the Friday evening nearest to 5 November.