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BHP Billiton has added another 85 names to the list of people who died at the Newcastle steelworks after new searches of records held in the company archives.
The new names, and extra biographical details added to many of the known names, was handed to the Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association on Thursday.
It takes the list of names compiled by BHP records from 189 to 274, with 174 identified as work-related and 93 non-work related.
It represents the latest stage in a continuing effort by BHP Billiton to acknowledge the human toll of the Newcastle steelworks, which marked its centenary in June.
The new research adds substantially to records of the mid-1960s to the late 1970s, which the company had been unable to locate in its initial search of the archives after the June ceremony to unveil a memorial statue for ‘‘the men and women of steel’’ at Mayfield.
Industrial heritage association spokesperson Aub Brooks said he was extremely grateful to BHP Billiton for the effort it was putting into the archival search.
‘‘You can only say that the way they are going about this, being prepared to acknowledge the human cost over the years, and to help us as a city in ensuring that record is as full and as accurate as it can be, is a very good thing,’’ Mr Brooks said.
He said the industrial association’s president, Bob Cook, was in Europe on holidays, but he would be talking with him shortly about the latest discovery.
In a letter to the heritage association, BHP Billiton vice-president of risk finance, Matthew Frost, said a team of four employees had spent three days combing archives since the original list was handed over in July.
In that time, the team reviewed 40,000 workers’ compensation cards that were contained in a steel cabinet.
As a result of the extra work, the list of employees and contractors who died at the works between 1926 and 1999 had gone from 189 to 274.
The new work had also added biographical details to some employees from earlier years who had previously only been identified by their surnames.
Mr Frost noted that the Newcastle Herald had added names to the list published in July, but said ‘‘we have not at this time updated our records to reflect the additional names’’.
He said it had been hard to categorically assign some deaths as either work-related or not because of the sometimes brief details recorded, but unless otherwise noted in the records, fatal collapses and road accidents to and from work were regarded as non-work related.
