A team of volunteers spent over 3000 hours painstakingly working through archive material to name all those killed in the Oaks Disaster for the first time in 150 years. The ground breaking research revealed a higher death toll than previously thought and huge amounts of details about the individuals.

We released the full list of 383 names on our website in April 2016 and have been delighted by the response, from individuals, groups and the media. Descendants have been in touch to share their family stories and local history groups from across the country have been using the list to reveal how it impacted on people from their respective locations.

The story was covered in the Barnsley Chronicle, Yorkshire Post, Rotherham Advertiser and the Sheffield Star. Our community officer, Stephen, was also interviewed on Dearne FM and BBC Radio Sheffield.

In the last week the story has been covered by the national Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, with a readership of over 51,000, and the local free magazine Barnsley Now.

International interest in the story has mostly come from the Irish connections of men and boys killed in the disaster. The story was taken up by the Irish Examiner, a national newspaper, and Stephen was interviewed live by Cork FM. It was then used by the largest Irish news website in America, based in New York.

We’ve also been out filming for a piece  with ITV Calendar News that we hope will be broadcast in the next week. Calendar is regularly watched by over half a million people.