Did you try a full text search of a newspaper database? I don't know what coverage of British newspapers is like, but I assume it's comparable to US databases. When I want to research one of those not quite famous enough for Britannica people I can just pull up their New York Times obit from ProQuest through my library.
Speaking of which, [[Category:Year of death missing]] is a great idea, and I'm going to see if I can find obits on some of these people.
On 1/19/06, David Boothroyd david@election.demon.co.uk wrote:
A while back I wrote an article about [[Elizabeth Cass]] who was a minor cause celebre in 1887. She was born in 1863 but never hit the headlines again. I assume she died sometime in the 1920s or 1930s but nowhere is there any confirmation. She has a birth year category but no death year category.